Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services

NNSL (Sep 13/99) - Robert Eyford, once an RCMP officer who now owns his own private investigation business in Quesnel, B.C., left his heart on the Mackenzie.

"I was a new-born baby when we moved from Northern Alberta to Hay River, NWT. My parents, grandparents, and I were one of the first families to travel over what is now the Mackenzie Highway," explains Eyford, who was born in 1948.

His parents fished commercially, and the first winter of Eyford's life was spent in a caboose out on Great Slave Lake. He was raised in Hay River, spent three of his teenage years in Fort Simpson, and eventually went to school in Yellowknife.

Eyford then joined the RCMP and returned to Hay River.

Eventually the wider world would beckon, but when he feels stressed, he comes home, whether for real or with his songs.

As a testament to the love he feels for the South Slave and Mackenzie regions, Eyford has recorded a CD, The Road to Great Slave Lake.

"How it all started one (a song) I wrote for a friend who was suddenly passing away," says Eyford.

"I wrote the song for her and I wanted to preserve that because it was kind of a special song. I had a number of people who wanted a copy so I went into a studio and did that song. It turned out so good and I had so much fun."

Eyford has always been musical. At age 10 he learned to play the accordion, and though as a teen he had too much fun doing other things, he returned to music in his 20s.

He now plays guitar, banjo, mandolin, accordion and is learning the zambonia, a reed flute.

"I found I had a knack for writing songs," he says, adding that he's written all the songs on the CD except one, which is an adaptation of a poem his aunt wrote when she was 16.

The Road to Great Slave Lake has a down-home country feel to it and Eyford has a rich, mellow voice that lends a sorrowful, yearning tone to most songs.

Songs like Fort Simpson Days, Watching The Liard Go By, and I'm From Hay River Too, tell stories of the writer in his younger days in the places he loved. Don't Wait For Me, the song Eyford wrote for his dying friend, is a poignant yet joyful song about his friend going on to a better place.

Eyford's lyrics are simple and evocative, the words gently reminiscing and remembering, the songs themselves giving an answer to the question "Why do this?"

The Road to Great Slave Lake is available at Cabin Fever in Hay River, Sam the Record Man and TFM in Yellowknife, or through Eyford at reyford@goldcity.net