Daron Letts
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Oct 24/05) - We all know Stephen Kakfwi - the arrogant political activist, the stoic Dene leader, the stone-faced Sahtu cabinet minister and the aloof premier, who helped shape today's North without cracking many public smiles.

Talking Fish Creek by Stephen Kakfwi Edge of the river, edge of the sea Dark moments, dark clouds only you could see In Talking Fish Creek in the arms of a friend I love you now, I loved you then Northern Women They've been to heaven They've been to hell They will say what is on their minds And their story, oh yes, they'll tell The ups and downs of our Northern times Northern woman of the Northern night Call to me from the diamond sky In the Walls of his Mind Remember the years They took all the children And they locked them away Where they taught them to pray There were children each night Who were quietly crying Your Journey The morning of your journey You have the will to win You're so young and angry And you have the strength within You will lead the old and weary Where you think the world should be And your passion is a prism To see the world that you are in

"I've retired and I can't live like this anymore," he said with a wide grin that rounded his cheeks and creased the corners of his eyes. "I have to become more human, perhaps."

Kakfwi shares his personal journey with the release of his first CD, Inside These Walls, on Nov. 22.

"It's a side of Steve Kakfwi that nobody's seen," he said.

The album features original songs, with Kakfwi on vocals, guitar and harmonica.

On some tracks, Bobbi Bouvier sings harmony, backed by bassist Gary Tees, drummer Percy Kinney and producer Rick Poltaruk on guitar.

Now a 55-year-old grandfather, Kakfwi left politics in 2003. Last year, he separated from his wife of 23 years, Marie Wilson.

His intense, poetic lyrics span a lifetime of emotional experience.

"Producing songs is an incredible joy, but sometimes it brings you places where there is darkness and pain - places where you really don't want to go a long time," he said.

"That's the blessing and the curse of trying to be an artist, trying to be creative, you sometimes have to go where there's a lot of trauma."

The disc takes its title from the first song Kakfwi wrote back in the summer of 1998, In the Walls of his Mind. The sombre tune draws from his seven years at residential schools in Inuvik, Yellowknife and Fort Smith. Other songs are tinged by more recent sadness.

In the song Heart of Blue Stone, Kakfwi explores the loneliness that lingers after the end of a marriage.

"It's making fun of the fact that most of us, as men, we try to be so tough and unfeeling," he said. "It's thanking that person in my life who made me able to feel and be expressive."

Songs like Lazarus Sittichinli, about a tall and handsome Gwich'in man who became an early RCMP constable, and Arrowmaker, a tribute to Tlicho leader Alexi Arrowmaker that uses imagery from Dene cosmology, express the nobility of Northern life.

One of the most recent songs on the album is a ballad called Northern Women that Kakfwi debuted at the Native Women's Association of Canada meeting in Yellowknife earlier this year.

It celebrates Metis, Dene and Inuit women working in the arts.

Kakfwi also includes a Dene drum beat song that his father, Noel, recorded during a Metis gathering in Tulita a few months before he passed away in 1975. His father's voice opens the song and Kakfwi finishes it.

The narrative talks of Dene life in late winter during precolonial times. It tells of the happy, magical moment when the travellers first saw the snow melting off a hillside, signalling an end to the darkness, cold, hunger and hardship of winter.

Kakfwi returned from a holiday along the west coast last week. After he completes his CD this month, he will ponder his future and make some decisions about what to do with the rest of his life.

A second CD or a book of his more than 50 poems is a possible project for 2006, he said, smiling.