Rachelle Van Zanten visits Axis Mundi Harvest in Revelstoke

Revelstoke Mountaineer Podcast

The plan for my interview with B.C. musician Rachelle van Zanten was to podcast the audio interview with a brief bio interview. But as I learned during the interview, the new mother of two has settled into a homesteading lifestyle in a rural area near Francois, B.C., and that means off-the-grid reception and dwindling power at her solar-powered home, all factors conspiring against great audio. In the 1990s, van Zanten broke into the music scene as a member of Painting Daisies. After years in Painting Daisies and 17 years travelling the globe as an independent musician, she settled in Francois Lake, B.C. where she engaged in the issues taking place on the land, such as oil and gas development and pipeline projects. She brings a politically and environmentally-oriented message with her blues influenced music. Both are intertwined with her experience growing up in the north and living in northern Alberta, where resource extraction issues are at the front of mind. Now rooted in Francois Lake with two young children, her songwriting and performing has evolved into a deeper experience. A pipeline right of way is being cut right behind her homestead and through her grazing lease, and through over 30 creeks where she fished and from which her cattle drink. “Songwriting became truly intense and personal and it required meditation and just being completely genuine,” she said. She is fresh off a performance in Portland, Oregon with famous ethnobiologist Wade Davis, with whom she periodically collaborates. “It was the coolest show I have ever done, a theatre filled with people who love the earth and want to make it work,” she said. “It’s much more fulfilling than having to squeeze into tight pants and make myself look good in front of an audience that perhaps wants something else. Van Zanten is Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, and has recently narrated a video detailing efforts to save northern herds of mountain caribou, something that reminded me very much of local efforts to save the southern herds. (“I tired to channel Lorne Greene because he was my hero back in the ‘80s,” she joked. “He was awesome.”) Rachelle van Zanten plays the Village Idiot in downtown Revelstoke from 9:30 p.m. to 10:15 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 18 as part of the Axis Mundi Harvest festival. Here is our audio interview with van Zanten. Apologies for some rough edits when the audio dropped out.