Stories of the Summer part 3 of 5

Written by Magan Carty

As Jacob put it so eloquently: “lead a life that leads folks to throw a festival of joy in your honour!” 

This is exactly what Nicole Edwards did. In honour of her rich impact in the Yukon as an activist, artist and human being, a festival of joy took place outside Mount Lorne Community Centre on June 18. 

The Joy Seeker Festival was a celebration of life and love organized by Nicole’s closest friends, family and musical colleagues. And the puppets were invited! We emerged from our U-Haul to surprise guests and add to the layers of magic taking place on that sunny summer afternoon. 

While I never had the privilege of meeting Nicole, it quickly became clear just how powerful of a legacy she left behind.

We swam through the dancing crowd with our big fish and handed out smaller fish to young ones as performers sang songs, told stories and shared memories about Nicole. While there were tears, there was also laughter and lots of hugs. Many spoke of how much of a true testament this event was to the kind of life Edwards led and how much she meant to her community. 

“This event is such a beautiful image of Nicole projected. You can sense her spirit,” I heard one of the guests saying.  

“Her energy is here,” said musician Caroline Watt in between songs of her set. “She wants to make sure we are all alert and present.” 

I remember hearing over and over again in every nook and cranny of the festival, “Nicole would have absolutely loved this!”

The school of big fish gathered again for a public parade along the Yukon River on the evening of Wednesday, June 29. Frida Fox also came along for her first performance since Arts in the Park. Animated by her maker, Allison Button, she was accompanied by two tiny foxes. Her children wore adorable matching costumes and followed along. 

With giant puppets and live theatre, however, comes unpredictable mishaps. Along the puppet path, Frida’s neck gave out. A family of passersby witnessed her collapse and played along with the drama of it all. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to complete the walk. The injury was too severe and more advanced puppet-surgery would be required before she’d be fit to perform again. We parted ways with the three foxes under a tree along the Yukon River and continued on our way. 

Another component of the Arctic Arts Summit was a self-guided visual arts tour of Whitehorse’s downtown creative core. Nakai Theatre was one of many local visual arts spaces and places on display in celebration of the culmination of the summit. We set up our station in a grassy area beside the White Pass building overlooking the wharf. Families, delegates and members of the general public stopped by to say ‘hi’ and catch a closer glimpse of our puppets. We explained how they are made, what materials they are made out of and even gave some of the kidlets a chance to become puppeteers.

All locations of the Art Crawl were within walking distance from the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre, which was the Arctic Arts Summit hub. We were situated at the front end of the crawl and our dear friend Nicole Bauberger was at the tail-end, with her “We Can Dance” installation at Northern Front Studio, approximately 1.5 km away. It also happened to be her gallery closing party, so at 6 p.m. the puppets left their station and paraded (as they do) downstream to surprise her. Along the way, we lost Frida and her baby foxes to the neck injury. 

When we arrived at our destination, Nicole and her dog Itsy welcomed us to join their dance party and celebrate. It was a lovely coming-together of art. Nicole herself created some of our big fish puppets so it made sense to bring them to her exhibit and showcase even more of the work she gifted the Whitehorse community this year.

It was our last event in June with the puppets. While we were getting tired, we wanted to go out with a bang in early July before swimming the puppets into storage until September.

JOIN IN THE FUN! Visit us at Wondercrawl, Friday September 2nd