Daron Letts
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Sep 23/05) - Another performance season at the Northern Arts and Cultural Centre (NACC) begins this month, with comedian Lorne Elliott heading the lineup.

"To me, like a lot of southerners, the North is an exotic, huge, varied, surprising and special place," he said.

Lorne Elliott took the stage for the first time in his life during a visit to Inuvik 35 years ago. - Photo courtesy of Lorne Elliott

Elliott will bring a compendium of new stories and songs with a Northern flavour to test out for his Madly Off In All Directions radio show. He'll also bring some old favourites, like his song When I First Came North and the comic tale, How I Bombed at the Dawson Music Festival.

He's not recording the acts, but he said he'd probably be back next year to tape a show.

Elliott has performed throughout the North, in the Yukon, Nunavut and the NWT.

But his first-ever stage appearance was in Inuvik about 35 years ago. He borrowed a guitar in a restaurant and played a couple of blues songs.

Back then, he was working for the federal department of fisheries. He and his colleagues were on a biological field trip to determine what species of fish lived under the ice on Finger Lake.

Elliott started hacking at the ice with his axe.

"The ice in the south is maybe two feet thick," he said. "Where we were in Inuvik, the sea ice was six feet thick. Our guide, Isaac Simon, told us we couldn't do it. But we said 'don't worry, we're from the South, we've read books on this.'"

He chiselled to the bottom of the ice. With the last axe blow, the water bubbled back up to the top and froze again.

"I told you," Simon said.

Elliott performs on stage at NACC on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1.