Rika Ruebsaat and Jon Bartlett have a love for songs about local places, a love they share with fellow musicians on Bowen. They will come to present songs and poems made up by Similkameen Valley pioneers and launch their new book entitled Dead Horse on the Tulameen: Settler Verse from BC's Similkameen Valley on Sunday, March 11, at 7 p.m. at the Gallery at Artisan Square.
Ruebsaat and Bartlett are looking forward to visiting Bowen again as they have a long connection to the place and its people. "We have known Lyn and Everhard [van Lidth de Jeude] for over 30 years. My connection with Lyn is through music as we were both involved in the Vancouver Folk Song Society," says Ruebsaat.
When the van Lidth de Jeude family moved to Bowen, Ruebsaat and Barlett maintained that friendship and joined into local musical events. "When Bob Doucet started the Kitchen Junket, we started coming to Bowen. We came over for seven or eight of them," Ruebsaat said.
At the Kitchen Junket, the couple met other Bowen Islanders. "We heard Chris Corrigan sing local songs about B.C. and realized that people enjoyed singing and listening to B.C. songs," Ruebesaat said adding that Corrigan also wrote original songs about life on Bowen.
In 2008, Ruebsaat and Bartlett started the Princeton Traditional Music Festival and just as they once traveled to Bowen Island to hear and make music, islanders started to flock to Princeton to attend those annual summer events.
"The Black Sheep came up, as well as Bob [Doucet], Chris [Corrigan] and the van Lidth de Jeude family," Ruebsaat said. "We've had a whole Bowen constituency coming to the festival every year."
Ruebsaat and Bartlett's new book brings the abandoned mines and ghost towns of the Similkameen Valley back to life as voices from the grave tell their stories in verse. The couple discovered those voices in the Princeton archives, sifting through fragile pages of old newspapers going back to 1900. They found out how it feels to leave the fields and hedgerows of England and come to the BC wilderness, what tools did the early miners use and why it took so long for the railway to come to the Similkameen.
At the presentation at the Gallery, Ruebsaat and Bartlett will sing songs and recite poetry as well as show historical photographs. Maybe they will have a chance to join their voices with music enthusiasts in the audience. Ruebsaat said that she hasn't met some of her Kitchen Junket buddies for a while and is looking forward to seeing them again. "It is a sweet thing to connect with people who have an appreciation for the songs about life where you live." Admission to the presentation is free and copies of the book will be for sale.
