Terry Halifax
Northern News Services

Tuktoyaktuk (Nov 01/02) - Dance floor regulars know the fiddle player through their ears more than through their eyes, but most two-steppers in the Delta know the sound of Mark Stevens.

Originally from Toronto, Stevens moved to Tuk in 1982 to go to work for Ken Borek Air during the oil boom.

A long-time guitar player, Stevens picked up the fiddle in 1987, just because he wanted to learn another instrument.

"I played guitar since I was a kid and then got interested in mandolin," he said. "I played guitar for Frank Cockney at lots of square dances in Tuk during the '80s and I got all those old square dancing tunes in my head."

"Someone sold me a fiddle -- I didn't even want the damned thing, but I started playing with Frank and stealing his licks."

The fiddle he bought then is the same one he plays today -- a Stradivarius copy made in the Czech Republic.

He played around the North where and when he could, at Folk on the Rocks, the Great Northern Arts Festival and Breakup Breakdown. He joined Frank Cockney to play at the Canadian pavilion at Expo '86 in Vancouver.

"That's when I really got tight with his music," Stevens said. "I really learned a lot from Frank."

Living and working in Tuk, he never had much of a chance to play for an audience and looked for an outlet for his craft.

"I sat around for the last 10 years wondering how in the hell I could get back into music," he recalled. "All of a sudden, this thing just fell in my lap."

He'd known Louie Goose for years, but never played with him until last year, when he sat in during a fiddle contest at the Mad Trapper.

"They started inviting me back regularly to play with the house band and I eventually became a regular with Louie," Stevens recalled.

Now a regular at the Trapper, Louie Goose and the Big River Band have kept Stevens busy and kept the two-steppers steppin' on the dance floor.

"I keep busy playing about half the time at the Trapper and the other half, I'm driving truck," he said.

Playing the same gig night after night can grow a little thin, but he keeps the work fresh by constantly learning new material.

"You have to keep learning, because an old fiddle tune can get pretty stale if people have heard it too much," he said.

He's just bought a new electric fiddle that's quite a bit different than his old one. "It's only designed to be played plugged-in," Stevens said. "The construction is fundamentally different and it's designed mainly for a live performance."

The nightly performance always makes his job interesting and he says he's glad to earn a living through music.

"I'm thrilled to be in a group and to be playing to a live audience every night," Stevens said. "The audience here is just great -- as soon as they hear a fiddle tune, they're on the dance floor."