Louise Burns becomes Dawson City's songwriter-in-residence

To say Vancouver singer-songwriter Louise Burns' latest tour stop is off the beaten path is an understatement.

She is spending the month of January in Dawson City, Yukon, to be songwriter-in-residence at the Dawson City Music Festival.

"The whole point of the program is to have an artist come up for the month of January and just work on music," she told On The Coast host Stephen Quinn. "Integrate into the local arts community, which is an incredibly easy thing to do because everybody here is an artist, maybe hold some songwriting workshops, hold some shows."

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For the past 10 years, the festival has invited an artist to spend the month in Dawson City. Previous guests include Weakerthans frontman John K. Sampson and Destroyer's Dan Bejar.

Burns says that in the early days of her residency, she's been thinking a lot about the connections between art, solitude and winter in Canadian art.

"It's something, I believe, to do with the fact that you're not distracted," she said. "If you put yourself in any room, it could be in the tropics, in the desert, if you just put yourself in a place of isolation, you will get something done. Or you might go crazy. Maybe that's the same thing, I don't know."

Burns says she's hopeful that the experience will help her development as a songwriter, if for no other reason than it's been along time since she's been able to dedicate a whole month to working on music.

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