The Sound of History

John Spearn John Spearn is an Edmonton singer/songwriter who is making Canadian History come alive. His project Northern Sightlines contains original songs about various historical figures, like Louis Riel and Jack Miner, as well as incidents in Canada's past like the passing of the Homsteader Act.

I spoke to John about his music and why he is working so hard to set Canada's past to music.

Paula: What is your musical background?

John: My family has always been musical. My father was a fiddler and drummer with the Dapp (Alberta) Skycasters! I started out singing leads in school concerts and took up guitar as a teen.

Before University I played in a folk group called Charly's Horse. The group did very well...we were regulars on CFRN TV's Russ Thornberry Show back in the 70's. Later on, in University, I played in a (loud!) commercial rock group called Headwind. We were one of Alberta's premier rock bands of the time, playing large scale venues such as Alberta Beach, high school dances, etc.

My passion was always acoustic music, however. I could never get enough of Simon and Garfunkel, Jim Croce, Harry Chapin, Cat Stevens, Gord Lightfoot, and Bruce Cockburn.

Besides teaching, I started performing as a solo singer/songwriter sporadically in the mid 80's, and built my repertoire from there, sticking with the best songs and scrapping or reworking the "dozens" of others.

Paula: How did you come up with the idea for the Northern Sightlines project and how long was this project in the making? John: I was always appalled at the lack of "Canadian" resources for teaching Social Studies! I had a prof in university who was into this, and he had us develop and produce motivational games for teaching social. Our group made a real good one. It was the one thing that I did in university that I actually used in my first years of teaching.

The idea sort of took off from there, and I started to come up with my own stuff to try to motivate and excite my students about our country's past. I kept it all quite secret over a period of about 15 years, and then decided that it was time to put it together!

Andrew Gambier and Pat Reid of Reidmore Books (now Nelson Thomson Learning) were awesome in their guidance and support. They kept it going through all of the pitfalls and loopholes!

Paula: As a teacher, do you find these songs help interest students in Canadian History?

John: It seems to be even harder nowadays to keep students attentive. When I was young I always remembered songs, and how much fun it was to listen and sing along, above all else. I think that this project may prove to be critically important in it's concept.

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Photo Courtesy of John Spearn

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