E-mail A Friend Tell a friend about the information found on this page by sending them an e-mail.   Your Name: Your E-mail:   Type an e-mail address, then click add: Add a Personal Message: (Optional)

January/February 2006 issue	In this issue Table of Contents Feature: Science of silence In-depth: Ground of music Feature: Bhangra beat Feature: Neighbours in song The Inside Story Editor’s Notebook Reverberations Explorer À la carte CG playlist Mosaic

On a sunny Friday afternoon in July, I join an audience sprawled on the grassy banks of the Yukon River, a swift, deep green artery that flows through Dawson and once brought miners here to seek their fortunes. Today's crowd has come for Dawson's other abundant resource — music. The dance-inducing pop of Toronto's The Sadies quickly changes pace to the breathy, syncopated panting and grunting of Nunavut's Tanya Tagaq Gillis. The 30-year-old Cambridge Bay native is what one of her colleagues calls "a rock 'n' roll throat-singer." Unlike traditional Inuit throat-singers who perform in pairs, Gillis is a solo act. Her primal, sensual tones and the sinuous undulation of her live performances have piqued the interest of Icelandic legend Björk, with whom she has toured and recorded. Gillis dazzles the riverside crowd as well. "When Tanya finishes performing," a bystander observes as Gillis wraps up her set with a moan and a sigh, "the audience needs a cigarette."

For one weekend every July for the past 26 years, Dawson, a tiny Yukon outpost 280 kilometres shy of the Arctic Circle, has thrown an extraordinary town party. The stars are an impressive repertoire of Canadian musicians who vie for the chance to head to Klondike country to take part in the Dawson City Music Festival, a uniquely Northern event that blends small-town charm with break-out talent. The music varies from Celtic to rap, folk to jazz and rockabilly. Performers come from across Canada, though about half are Yukoners. For the first time, the 2005 festival featured musicians from all three territories, as well as Alaska and Iceland.

As it has been since the gold rush, Dawson is a summertime boom town. Spring thaw brings a steady stream of students seeking paycheques, northern-lights watchers and part-time miners with dreams of pay dirt. Then, for one jam-packed weekend, the town is overwhelmed with music lovers. The festival is the summer's biggest event, drawing thousands of fans from all over North America and as far away as Europe and Australia and rendering the town's 1,800 permanent residents a temporary minority. Visitors arrive with backpacks or guitar cases strapped to their backs, in muddy RVs, canoes on rooftops, or on mountain bikes. They are tattooed, blue-rinsed, tie-dyed, Tilley-Hatted, hiking-booted and flip-flopped. Hotels have been booked solid for months and the baseball pitch outside town sprouts a tent city.

For the rest of this story, visit your local newsstand or go to our store to buy this issue.

For related stories, facts and figures, visit CG’s Explorer Online