Malwina Gudowska

 

Award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter Chantal Kreviazuk stopped by Calgary's Holt Renfrew last week to unveil her new Canada Goose coat. Fittingly called the Chantal Parka, with its long and slim silhouette and camouflaged patches, the coat is a more sophisticated version of the popular Canada Goose jacket. A portion of the proceeds from the $995 jacket are going towards Polar Bear International (PBI), an organization Kreviazuk has been a supporter of for a number of years. I sat down with the former Prairie girl (she grew up in Manitoba but now splits her time between Toronto and L.A.) to chat about PBI, her love for the North, the Winnipeg music scene and who she was recently texting (hint: it wasn't Raine).

First I have to thank you for my trip down memory lane last night. I was listening to some of your older songs and I remembered cruising down 8^th Street in Saskatoon blaring “Wayne” on the radio. It was weird to say the least.

You’ve worked with a lot of different artists over the years, anyone left on your work-with wish list?

I would love to work with Neil Young, I know it will never happen because it’s Neil Young. I just got to work on Drake’s album and I love the song. It’s a dream come true to be crossing over to this genre. I really learned from that process, while it’s nice to dream of who you want to work with, in the end, to have a beautiful song to sing is such a gift. This particular song, it’s called “Over My Dead Body” and it’s one of my favourite songs I’ve ever written and I love singing it. I just texted him [Drake] last night and I said, “We have to sing that song!”

Joni Mitchell paints now so I don’t think she has any desire to make music. I’ve met Joni and I like her a lot, I spent an evening with her, years ago and it was sort of like, OK, that happened, that’s over, where do I go from there?

How did the relationship with Polar Bears International begin?

I used to go up to Churchill [Manitoba] and that’s when I had no idea where my Native ancestors were from and I just went to the exact spot for the experience and the beauty that my grandmothers would have stayed and lived in. When CBC had this rich discovery about my genealogy, they had asked if they could go further with that and I said, of course and it was very controversial in my family because we had been raised to identify with our Eastern European side.

My grandmother who is Native married a man of Eastern European descent, of Ukrainian descent my grandfather was, and then on my dad’s side, they were all Ukrainian so it was easy for us to say we were Ukrainian.

But I have always identified more with the spirituality of Natives, their mysticism and beliefs than Christianity. I loved what the Native spirit represented so I had to convince family members…it was pretty intense. In the end, my grandmother who was apprehensive, in the end she even allowed the cameras to come to her apartment and talk about her life and then she died so it was cool that she got to learn who she was, embrace it and reconcile with it and then pass. So the North means a lot to me.

So was it a natural relationship with PBI then?

To be honest, I can’t remember exactly how it started, it would have been around 2007. I have such a love for the North in Manitoba and it’s been the most authentic journey, being aligned spiritually with the North. On a very pragmatic level, the life of the bear is a bit of indicator for where we are in our habitat. There is an urgency to bring awareness to mitigating our climate issues. The bear is a symbol of the North and an incredible creature. It’s otherworldly, unlike any other species. It’s so incredible and to think they survived they’ve survived for so long and it’s sad to think that we are on the verge of losing the bear, and where does that leave us?

I recently heard there is some talk about making the bear the official mascot of Canada instead of the beaver.

Well you know, I grew up on the river in Manitoba so there were a lot of muskrats and beavers going by so I fell in love with them too.

Speaking of Manitoba, there are always great bands coming out of the area. What are your thoughts on the music scene there?

I don’t live there anymore so I am not actively engaged in the music scene. My story is so random: I was very private and shy about my creative process as a kid. I was usually the kid, who would go out and watch bands with my friends, and I had this whole other secret life of being a classically trained student and I competed in the festivals. I was a pretty good student for being a rebel kid and that was my world that I was strangely, embarrassed about it.

So I did the let’s go out to the Pyramid and watch bands and go up to the lead singer of the Skydiggers and tell him he changed my life and that whole thing and fall in love with Chris Burke-Gaffney from Orphan. And the next thing I know, Chris Burke-Gaffney is working with me and changing my life.

I remember getting my record deal and no one knew it and I remember the guys from The Watchmen sat down next to me in a bar and them telling me, “Well, you know, just because you have a record deal doesn’t mean you have a song on the radio.” And I said, OK boys and I grew up with them so they were just posturing me, but they were right. You can have opportunities but you have to work hard and be strategic and amazing things need to happen to have a long career.

When I am up North, one of the coolest things I have seen is women holding the babies inside their hoods. It’s so incredible, the babies are in there kind of like a monkey and they pull the hood over and go out into the severe cold and they do it. It’s so normal. I took my four-month old up with me one time, it felt very natural for him to be with me, I was breastfeeding but I remember everybody was lashing me not to take him. Are you crazy? It’s 150 km-winds, why would you do that to your baby? So I had him all bundled up and I got off the plane…and the ladies were all like boof. [Chantal gestures pulling up a hood over her head.]

So when we went to design the coat…the hood…in my head, it was going to be the massive hood. We changed it a bit of course but that’s where it was coming from. It’s very Red Riding Hood in a way.

On a fashion note, since you’re a Prairie girl who knows all too well how cold it can get in the winter, what are your tips for staying warm?
The Canada Goose aviator hat should be in every woman’s bag; I love a great scarf that also turns into my blanket on the plane/the children’s mat on the beach. I have one that I take with me absolutely everywhere. That one is by Alexis LaMontagna, she’s a good friend and designed that red dress that I wore for Canada’s Walk of Fame. And of course, there is nothing warmer than a Canada Goose jacket…and I have never had a pair of Sorels I didn’t love.


Canada Goose President and CEO Dani Reiss, Chantal and yours truly.

The limited edition Canada Goose Chantal Parka is available at Holt Renfrew.