Looking back to the seventies and early eighties you may recall a singer/songwriter by the name of Denise Larson. DENISE LARSON AND FRIENDS were a familiar group to West Coast folkies, playing in venues across Western Canada and particularly in and around Vancouver. They were regulars at the Classical Joint, the Soft Rock Cafe, Simon Fraser University, and they enjoyed playing the round of folk festivals of the day; events like Farrago in Faro, Yukon, the Winnipeg and Edmonton Folk Festivals, and the Renaissance Faire in Courtenay. The group was comprised of Charlie Knowles on bass, currently playing with Joelle Rabu, Mark Dowding on flutes, whistles, harmonica, and saxophone, currently with Wheat in the Barley, the late Daniel Sheppard on fiddle and mandolin, and Denise, guitar and powerful vocals. There was a warmth and joy in their music that endeared them to their audiences. Later Roger Wade, Sheila Allen, and Doug Thordarson would join the group, all fine musicians and keeping to the blend of original, contemporary and traditional folk.

Born and raised on a grain farm in Southwestern Saskatchewan, Denise moved to the East Coast of the U.S.A., Washington D.C., Maryland, Virginia, after graduating from the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon. She lived there for six years and it was there that she began her career as professional musician. In 1974 Denise and her daughter Mikael packed up their sparse belongings and journeyed home to Canada, settling down in Vancouver. Between 1977 and 1982, Denise was to write and record three albums, entitled, FARMERS DAUGHTER, SECOND HARVEST, and SAGE ALBUM. She enjoyed CBC RADIO and TV exposure and appeared regularly on CKVU-TV, the Vancouver Show. In 1980 she was the recipient of a CANADA COUNCIL GRANT. Then in November of 1982, while playing a Sage Album release concert in Merville on Vancouver Island, Denise met a Dutchman by the name of Ron Wolda. Three months later they married and she moved to the outskirts of Merville, B.C.! As far as the media and most of her audience were concerned, Denise had disappeared without a trace.

Now, 18 years later, we are brought up to date with her life and her music with the release of a remarkable new CD, entitled, TO HONOUR JOY. We learn that Denise gave birth to a son in 1986 and the family moved to Cortes Island in 1994 (evermore remote). There, Denise began to live out new passions, that of writing music for theatre, and teaching, at Linnaea School on Cortes Island, and offering Reiki and Inspirational Counselling. In 1997, Denise met Ann Mortifee, whom she had long admired. Anns music had in fact inspired Denise to return to Canada. A deep connection was immediately felt and Ann moved to Cortes two weeks later! The two of them soon discovered the absolute joy of blending their voices. Powerful harmonies emerged and it was Ann who encouraged Denise to record again, offering her newly built studio in the woods. On August 3, 2001, a new CD was born.

Produced by Denise, engineered by Tim C. Palmer, the CD features 11 musicians; Ann, Denises daughter Mikael, (whom by the way, has just released her own CD entitled TROUBLE), son Paul, and husband Ron. Island musicians, Bruce Hipkin, Zack Dennison, Liz Richardson, Matt Hodgsons, and Vancouver based, Charles Knowles and Mark Dowding, contribute a fullness of voice and instrumentation. We have vocals, bass, flute, saxophone, whistle, keyboards, didjeridu, djembe, and cello. The result is rich and satisfying. We learn that the cello is a Wolda family heirloom made in Paris, France in 1749, and that the Raven and songbirds, who introduce and close the album, reside in Tiber Bay, Denises home.

TO HONOUR JOY also happens to be a MULTI-MEDIA CD. Enhanced with a beautiful Cortes Island Slide Show by Irene Blueth, these images can be seen while listening to Feel the Island. A Video by Richard Trueman, features Ann and Mark hamming it up while recording the comic song, High Flyin Fly. Worth the wait, TO HONOUR JOY does just that, and the songs manage to instill hope, at a time when hope is in rather short supply. Denises message on the liner seems oddly prophetic.

"These songs were written in celebration of joy. From a place of deep joy we are truly able to be loving. From that whole place of deep joy we are enabled to trust. And it is love and trust that empowers us now." Denise Wolda

"In a spiral of Sacred Sound may the seed of your song children go out, and drifting upon the winds, spread beauty and love wherever they are needed." Ann Mortifee (speaking of To Honour Joy)

Denise can be seen or contacted by phone at: 250-935-8595 Back to the TOP

I do not fully understand why I’ve come to live on Cortes Island, but I do recognize it for what it is. It is an absolute Gift of Grace. I do see that I was brought to it slowly and surely and that by the time my feet touched the ground of the Mill Site at Tiber Bay on Sept. 2, 1994, and I screamed out at the top of my lungs, "I’m here!", I was ready to be so. I was ready to love her, Cortes Island, and she me, which she has done a thousand-fold, and I attempt daily to deserve this gift. I try not to pollute, nor waste, nor take her for granted and I share her with as many friends in my home as I can manage, to assuage my guilt that I am here and so many are not. And because I know that guilt is a False God I try instead to make my life here count. I try to be joy-filled, which is not difficult; because of where I live, my family, friends and community, but also because I practice at truly trusting. It’s a Practice of Trust that helps me to recognize that every really meaningful and wonderful thing in my life has fallen into my lap, not because of me, but despite of me. Despite my continuous need to plan and organize, some force has made my life turn out well. So, I practice trusting that synchronicity, that Force, and I feel immense Gratitude.

I was raised on a grain farm in Southwest Saskatchewan. Beautiful prairie hills rolled up from the South Saskatchewan River a mile away and touched the very edge of our farmyard. In those cherished hills I made my first tender connections and asked those initial questions. Who was I really and what was I doing here, and what in the world was my Purpose? My Mother listened with a mixture of strained patience and support to my endless deluge of poetry and song, which I began to create to tackle those questions, each and every time I walked my hills. So from the beginning I was odd, but because I was also very loving, a kind prairie community loved me back. Country school, town school, and University followed. Then came a sad and very difficult time in my life, a four-year marriage that seems oddly out of synch with the rest of my story. The gift of that relationship however, was a beautiful daughter. It also pulled me completely out of my original setting, placing me in Washington D.C., Virginia, Maryland; the East Coast of the U.S.A.

My baby and my music were my salvation and three years later I pulled away from this entanglement, as much as seemed possible, and began to support myself and my daughter through my music. Three years further down the road Mikael and I left Maryland and drove home to Canada, camping and pulling our sparse belongings behind us in a rented U-Haul trailer. Amazingly, I covered those five thousand miles up along the East Coast, through the Maritimes, and across Canada, without once backing up, for I had never learned that trick with a trailer behind! We pulled up in front of my Sister’s house in Vancouver, twenty-fifth and MacDonald, on a bright afternoon in June. The very next morning we were back on the road, riding in an Econoline van and heading for some place called Cortes. A bunch of preachers, my brother-in-law George among them, had just bought into something they called a Land Co-op. It was an exciting time, but to be honest, what I remember the most about that holiday was the enormity of the slugs and the damp cold. My blood had thinned in a hot, humid climate and I was shocked that they considered this to be summer. Everything was very rough; the terrain, the roads, the camping. But something stirred in me. In some sort of way I was the child again in the prairie hills. Some longing was experienced. But it had to be stopped. I was a musician and I lived in the city. I had a career to develop in new territory and I had rent to pay. 1974 proved to be a near impossible time to find living accommodation, as was the search for enough paying gigs, also nearly impossible.

Still, I managed. Over a period of nine years I recorded three albums and enjoyed the companionship of wonderful musician friends who supported my dreams. During those years I had the good fortune of playing some major festivals and meeting some of my heroes and heroines; Odetta, Tom Paxton, Sylvia Tyson. I longed to meet Ann Mortifee for it was actually upon hearing her music, written for "The Ecstasy of Rita Joe," that I had been inspired to leave the States and come back to Canada. However, our meeting was not to be. On January 15, 1983, my band and I were playing at a community hall in Merville, on Vancouver Island. The place looked like a barn, no offense, and the crowd was small and somewhat restless. Our music wasn’t really dance music, certainly not rock and roll, and the Courtenay Arts Alliance hadn’t been able to acquire a liquor license. But that particular gig turned out all right for me! Enter - the Dutchman, in a dark blue sweater, tall, with a charming accent. I remember the moment distinctly and from that moment my life was to change almost completely. Three months later, I was married, living in Merville, my head spinning from the wonder of it all, and counting my blessings.

I remember the phone call from my sister that would change our lives again, forever. My husband Ron, is a handy sort of fellow. Unlike most of the men I had dated, he could actually manifest form. Could he build my sister and family a modest cabin at Frabjous Day Bay on Cortes Island? No problem. It would be fun to show Cortes to Ron, who had been a hundred places I couldn’t even pronounce, but had never been to Cortes Island. Ron immediately loved it. He loved everything; the scenery, the people, but most of all, he loved the roughness; the terrain, the roads, and the camping. His wild Dutch escapee heart cried out to be here forever. And I had to agree, something stirred in me. But what about our beloved Merville home? It was unthinkable to turn our back on the joy I had known there. I had forgotten, for the moment, that real joy takes up residence within and that it actually seems to thrive on roughness; open, unorganized, wild places and people. We returned to Frabjous Day Bay to fell the selected trees. How would we mill these logs, we wondered. I was still singing and flogging my third album, Sage, which had come out just seven weeks before the fateful Merville event. I was singing at the Billy Minor in Maple Ridge when Bill Friedel and Garvin Morris walked in. Old friends, for I had known them while living at the Alouette Arts in Maple Ridge, I now introduced them to my new found husband. I remember the moment we told them we had just come back from Cortes Island and we found out that they had just purchased land on Cortes! We asked them if they knew someone who could mill our logs. The rest is history if you are a local. If you are not, then lets just say that Bill wasted no time telling us about his mill at a place called Tiber Bay, which coincidentally, was only a mile away from Frabjous Day Bay! We were all incredulous. What luck! We agreed to meet Bill at Tiber Bay on Cortes Island and while we were inspecting his mill we would also check out this land co-op "thing" he kept talking about.

A week later we were back as planned. We followed an exceedingly rough road down the hill from the mill site and then walked the "goat trail" down toward the orchard and Bud’s place. There was definitely another moment here as we walked that trail and first glimpsed Tiber Bay. We were filled with a longing. The only other place that had made me feel this way was the ravine next to my childhood farm, my hills. What could we do with this feeling? Who were these people, so blessed to live here? How was it possible? The next afternoon we were visiting Irene Blueth, whose amazing octagonal house perched on a rock bluff and looked down over the Bay, when Bud Jarvis walked in. His sister Ann owned the orchard site and she had just decided she wanted to sell. We seemed to like the place. Were we interested? In our utter amazement we could almost not speak, but then in unison, in a word, "Yes!" How? Well, that would take the courage to ask my Father for a loan when I still owed him for half of the cost of recording Sage, and it would be nine years before we actually felt able to make the move. To think we wondered whether or not there would be enough work and whether or not we might feel isolated. In the meantime we would donate our orchard’s fruit to the crows, ravens and raccoons, camp here in the summer, give birth to our wonderful son Paul, and gradually ready ourselves for the leap from civilization to a remote British Columbian Island.

What a joke. We’ve never been busier. We’ve never been happier, nor with more friends, commitments and richness in our lives. We truly know community, and the stirrings and longings in our hearts have been replaced by a connected-ness to place and people and Spirit that thrills us and brings us to tears. As well, I have never known more uses for my music; more writing, and teaching, as well as some performing. And I have discovered new passions in the healing arts that bring me a deep, quiet satisfaction. And Ann Mortifee? Why, she lives next door. I attended one of her workshops at Hollyhock three years ago and she moved to Cortes Island two weeks later! We connect in ways we still don’t fully understand. But we do recognize it for what it is, an absolute Gift of Grace. Back to the TOP