Canmore, do more, see more, be more.

Ever since I was a small girl, folk festivals have been an annual part of my life. Many holidays have been spent drinking hot mulled apple juice at the National, surviving the climatic extremes and wild partying of Woodford, and, when very young, waiting patiently, often for hours, for my parents outside the Guinness Tent at Port Fairy. Folk festivals are part of our family history. With this in mind, Mum proposed that we make the Canmore Folk Music Festival the destination for our week together, and we all agreed (with a fair amount of good-natured eye rolling).

Canmore is in the Canadian Rockies, just next door to Banff and an hour or so out of Calgary. And it’s one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to. In Berlin I was dreaming about nature and wild open spaces - towards the end I was getting sick of seeing people and concrete and commerce every time I opened up my door. The Rockies are the complete opposite. Lush pine forests, aquamarine lakes, snow-capped mountains that tower above the town, horizons and sunsets, icy blue glaciers and a thrilling selection of North American mammals - you felt wholesome just breathing in the air. A stunning, if distracting, backdrop to a festival.

On the day we arrived, Canmore was strangely quiet. Mum was disappointed by the lack of buskers and bunting on the main street. But as the hours passed the town filled with middle aged couples in comfortable shoes and capris - the party had arrived! The actual festival targeted this bracket squarely, although there were a few small children, reluctant/embarrassed teenagers with the parents and a couple blissed-out hippies. The festival was also a dry event, news which was met with a collective groan from our family. And it was surprisingly touristy – when an enthusiastic performer exhorted “all those born in Canmore, raise your hands!” two stragglers up the back were the only ones who represented.

Even though “folk” hasn’t been my thing since I first tuned into Triple J and attending three days of it without a compelling reason isn’t something I’d usually consider, it provided a great environment to relax and spend time with my family. I had a great time sitting in the sun, dozing, chatting, reading, eating and occasionally passing judgment on lyrical quality or recent trends in baby-boomer fashion. We saw some good gigs and did some good dancing and gorged at the free pancake breakfast at the Senior Cits Hall. And it wasn’t all folk – on one night my sisters and I snuck away to the local establishment to watch Canadian Pub Rock in all its tight-panted, cowboy-themed finest.

But Mum and Dad weren’t just there for the bodhrans. They were also ambassadors for the Australian folk scene on a fact-finding and partnership-making mission. At first I laughed at Dad’s rotating selection of “Yackandandah Folk Festival” t-shirts, believing it the epitome of sartorial laziness. But I realized that they were actually the ultimate ice-breakers, starting conversations everywhere from the information booth to the Perogi queue. Due in no small part to his wardrobe, Dad wrangled the entire family VIP tickets. As the heavens opened up on the final evening, we stocked up on free coffee backstage, scoffed banana and peanut butter burritos and chatted with Canadian folk royalty.

It’s now Tuesday evening and we’ve left Canmore, Canada AND our parents behind. Leah, Georgia and I are embarking tomorrow on an epoch-defining Ginnivan Sisters Roadtrip Extraordinare starting from Minneapolis, following the Mississippi down to New Orleans and stopping in at a heckload of fun places on the way. Mum and Dad have graciously driven us down to East Glacier Park, Montana so that we can get onboard the Amtrak Train when it comes through first thing tomorrow morning. We will spend 20 hours on a train going through some of the most remote parts of the USA. We’re keeping an eye out for glaciers and moose. I’ll write when we make it to Minneapolis alive.