WEYBURN - The Wardens will bring their unique blend of original songs and stories about Canada’s protected wilderness areas to the Cugnet Centre stage, as they are the next artists to be featured by the Weyburn Concert Series on Thursday, Oct. 24.
The Rocky Mountain-based band’s music reflects the lands protected as Canadian National Parks wardens.
Scott Ward, now retired from the Park Service, plays along with longtime partner, Ray Schmidt, who is a current serving park warden in Jasper, Alta., along with fiddler Scott Duncan, and Nico Humby on the standup bass and mandolin.
Ward noted the group came into being after he and fellow warden Schmidt played at a reunion of park wardens from across Canada, held in Banff.
They started playing together more, and formed as a group in 2009. Ward plays standup bass and guitar, while Schmidt plays mandolin, guitar and standup bass, enabling the group members to switch roles around on stage in between the telling of tales from the mountain parks.
“Ray and I have written most of the songs about our lives as wardens. It’s about the land and the people, plus Ray has a couple of songs about the prairies,” said Ward.
He noted that they have incorporated a visual element into their show, as videos and photos will be shown on the big screen behind them to illustrate what experiences or stories they are singing about.
Ward spent 35 years working for the National Parks, spending about half that time as a back-country warden on horseback, and the other half working in search-and-rescue in Banff National Park. He also spent three years working in the Pacific Rim Park on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
Through OSAC (Organization of Saskatchewan Arts Councils) the group will be doing a tour to 19 Saskatchewan communities, with 10 this fall and another nine in the spring, and in between they will tour in the U.S., from Great Falls, Mont., to California, Washington and Oregon.
“Wherever we go, it goes over really well,” said Ward, noting they have shared their music all across Canada and the U.S., from PEI to Prince Rupert, and from southern California to Alaska.
He characterizes their music as folk and western, and is entirely acoustic with tight harmonies, which audiences appreciate no matter where they have played.
The Wardens are currently working on their fifth album, and will have CDs available at the concert in Weyburn along with copies of a book about park warden life written by a good friend of theirs.
“We enjoy meeting people, that’s a big part of the show for us,” said Ward. They have done shows in Saskatchewan before, but this will be the first performance in Weyburn.
“We’re looking forward to coming, for sure. We always enjoy playing on the prairies,” he said.
