Trapper Dan is all about us
DISCourse with Bill Polonsky – WWW.WHATSUPYUKON.COM
The album is a blend of clever tunes, good humour, stories and a travelogue that will bring you from Skagway to Whitehorse and back again. “My vote for IPod hit of the album would be Sgt. Preston…it’s been swimming in my head for weeks”. The song outlines the basic legend of Sgt. Preston, singing Mountie of the North, in his quest to bring evildoers to justice with his trusty dog King, and his sled, “in the land that rarely thaws powered by his sled dog’s paws” Add that to the inspired trumpet of Don Bishop peppering his part with TV and movie themes and this gem of a song will surely keep you and the kids marching around the house.
Trapper Dan leads listeners on an audio escapade
Leighann Chalykoff – WWW.YUKONNEWS
The album’s playful lyrics touch on every Yukon stereotype from living in the bush and drinking ice cold Chilkoot to Yukon staples like the story of the Princess Sophia and Sgt. Preston the singing Mountie of the North.
The Princess Sophia performed at the Mendenhal Glacier in Juneau Alaska
Chic Callas/Daniel Halen
The second part of the CD is an audio road trip tour that guides viewers down the highway between Whitehorse and Skagway, Alaska, on a treasure hunt for the 21-century. Halen acts as an “invisible tour guide” who tells listeners snippets of the history of the various sites along the way like the Chilkoot Trail. Listeners are to use the disc’s liner notes, a GPS or compass, and the songs’ lyrics to decipher Geocache clues and find these treasures hidden along the highway.
The hunt is meant to get people out of their cars, and to get them exploring the sites and stories of the territory on their own. It’s an example of “edu-tainment” – a technique Halen picked up after years of teaching at Yukon schools.
A history buff, avid outdoorsman and innovator, Halen came to the Yukon… to stake a claim in Dawson and lived off the grid for a decade of his Yukon stay, juicing his home with power from a vegetable oil generator, the same fuel he uses to power his car…
From Welding Class to LA
by Barry “Jack” Jenkins – WWW.WHATSUPYUKON.COM
Of all the people who have played at Whitewater Wednesday Night Jam, Dan Halen has the coolest name. And it’s his real name.
“Write me a cheque and we’ll find out,” the finger-picking blues/jazz guitarist and onetime Trapper Dan jokes with me over matcha lattes.
“After working in the music store, I worked on a road paving crew, doing the whole tour through northern Manitoba,” he adds. “I kept on taking a guitar with me and a friend of mine, Isaac, working on the crew said, ‘If I could play guitar like that, I would. You should go back to school.’ So I ended up applying to U of M, unable to read music, and they accepted me anyway…”I did a five-year degree program in classic guitar and an Education degree too.”
From there, Halen accepted a job at as a music teacher in Dawson City. By the time he arrived, however, the job had turned to teaching shop class, welding, mathematics and computers instead.
In 2003 he teamed up with Grant Hartwick and Dale Cooper in a band called Bucks and Honey. “That was my first Yukon band.”…
The next step towards the L.A. music scene was several years of Berklee Music online courses in songwriting and studio production as a virtual session musician/engineer with colleagues from around the world. All from the comfort of his Yukon based FACE The Music Productions studio.
On His Own; Almost – with Rich in Every Way
Barry “Jack” Jenkins – www.whatsupyukon.com
Recorded largely by himself in his home studio, the CD features Halen performing all instruments and vocals on all but one track.
Most of the songs have a soft, mellow, folk-rock sound, featuring Halen’s finger-style guitar playing. The first song, “Falling Up”, an instrumental, shows this off. By adding bass and drums, Halen fills out the track into a full band.
…”the album overall is a good representation of Halen’s skills, with particular emphasis on his finger-picking guitar…a testament to how much a solo artist can accomplish with determination and the right equipment. Outstanding track: “A Brighter Shade of Blue”.
“Rich in Every Way” ( YouTube Video below ) has touching lyrics as the song tells the story Halen gathered from conversations with American veterans, people from humble backgrounds, who serve their country without much material reward.
“He’s a pauper to a rich man/hero to the poor/a man I proudly call my/Brother from the war.”