Fort Nelson's Jasmine Netsena wins first SOCAN and TD Indigenous Songwriter Award

For northern B.C.-raised singer-songwriter Jasmine Netsena, New York City'sCentral Park just didn't cut it.

"That was the only place that I could go and get connected to nature and it just wasn't enough," Netsena said.

"I just wanted more. I wanted more nature."

She knew being a singer in the south in New York, Vancouver, Nashville, or Toronto would afford her more opportunities, but she couldn't do it anymore.

"I can't be that artist. I can't be another artist based out of Toronto. That's just not me. I need balance," she said.

So Netsena, who isDene and Tahltan, packed up and left for the North and its rugged, rocky landscapes and tree-filled skies and took a break from songwriting.

It turned out to be the right decision because Netsana just became the first recipient of TD Bank Group and SOCAN's Indigenous Songwriter Award.

The award, from the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada and TD Bank, comes with a $10,000 prize.

"For me, in this stage of life where I'm at, just coming back into songwriting after basically a five-year hiatus, I'd say it's a nice boost to me," she said.

Songwriting hiatus

Although Netsena has been singing for almost her entire life, she had not written any new songs in recent years.

After her move up North, she spent time in Yellowknife, soaking in the Dene culture of her father from the city's strong Dene community, and working in a Dene-language radio station. She had a daughter, and moved back to Fort Nelson.

In fact, it was on a cross-country ski trail in Fort Nelson that Netsena's first song in years came to her.

"In the last four or five years, I hadn't really written anything," she said. "I went out on the trail and I had a song come to me. I had my phone so I recorded the song into my phone."

That song was Power,a song about how different her life is compared to her grandmothers and the sacrifices they made so that her life could be what it is.

"I need a certain quiet and a certain surrounding to be able to hear the song when it comes to me."

Listen to Jasmine Netsena's interview on Daybreak North:

With files from Daybreak North

the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada throws its r