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Lynn Lau
Northern News Services
Enterprise (July 30/01) - When Jimmy Yakinneah jigs, his face radiates joy. When Norman Danais fiddles, his music invigorates the soul.
The two friends are Dene-Tha from Meander River, Alta., and they were in Enterprise July 21 for the Gateway Jamboree music festival.
 Norman Danais fiddles his heart out. - Lynn Lau/NNSL photo |
It takes about two hours to drive from their hometown to Enterprise, but you could say their journeys here began years before, from the bottom of a liquor bottle.
Yakinneah, 41, is a man with an easy smile. He travels all over with his camper, going to festivals, talent shows and jigging contests. Sometimes he takes his 12-year-old son, who is pretty good at breakdancing.
Looking at Yakinneah now, it's hard to imagine the man he used to be.
Jigging saved his life, he'll tell you "I used to be a street alcoholic," he says. "I used to get drunk and black out, do crazy things, go to jail. Sometimes, I'd wake up in the snow.
"My dad, he passed away in '97, he used to talk to me about the future. He told me, 'Quit, for you, and your kids and your kids' kids.' But I was just like some kids are today -- someone says something and it goes through your ears. I was thinking I'd change my life someday, but that someday never came. Eleven years I was drinking. But finally, I just made up my mind, and I started jigging."
That was 1994. His sister, who is herself an accomplished jigger, taught him how. Two years later, Yakinneah won his first competition, in Fort Providence in 1996. Since then, he's been winning more and more. He doesn't drink or smoke anymore - he needs his breath for dance. He has a collection of trophies and a stack of envelopes he keeps from the prize money he's won.
"I used to be a shy Indian, but now I can dance in front of 900 people, and no hangover. You just wake up, every day, quick. My life is good."
Danais, 47, has a story too. It's punctuated by dates and numbers, markers for every wasted day and blurred memory.
"I was born in 1954," he begins. "I was raised in Hay Lakes, Alta. I went to residential school for nine years and that's where I lost some of my culture. I started drinking in 1966 and that's when everything went down the drain.
"In 1972, it got worse and I started going to jail, getting in trouble with the law. I don't know why I did it. No one pries open your mouth and pours the drink down. You wake up in jail or whatever and you say, OK, I'll never do it again. But the next thing I know I'm on the bottle again.
"In 1993, I was driving alone, I told myself it's time to change. I went to a treatment centre for 43 days, and in 1994, I started concentrating on fiddling. I started getting really good.
"I dreamed a vision - a person talking to me. He said, 'You're doing right.' The answer was with the music. Sometimes people are sad and down, I give them my music and it makes them happy again.'"
Danais also travels all over, playing at fiddling contests, doing gigs in different towns. He saves money working in the winter to last him the summer, which he spends mostly on the road. In 1997, he started his own band - a five-piece country band. Five months ago, he recorded his first cassette. It makes him happy to talk about it.
"I'm proud of myself," Danais says. "I've been sober for seven years now. I changed everything, I changed my life."
Reflecting on the time he lost, he asks himself sometimes why it took so long. Maybe, he says, it was because the possibilities just never occurred to him before. "There are a lot of things you can do that I didn't know you could do without alcohol. Like life. A good life."
Yakinneah is listening, and he nods in agreement. "That's why people see us and they say, 'Hey, how come you're always smiling?'"
Life is indeed sweet.
