Country singer Johnny Reid charms Nunavik festival-goers

Kuujjuaq youth crowd around Johnny Reid as he performs at Aqpik Jam Aug. 10. (PHOTO BY ISABELLE DUBOIS)

They swooned, they screamed, they filmed, they sang.

Kuujjuaq’s Katittavik town hall turned into giant sing-along Aug. 10 for the opening night of this year’s Aqpik Jam musical festival, featuring headliner Johnny Reid.

The country music singer and songwriter packed the venue with Nunavimmiut from across the region, many of whom flew in just to see his show.

The Scottish-born, Nashville-based crooner is well-known in the region for hit singles like “Today I’m Gonna Try and Change the World” and “A Woman Like You.”

Reid called the 24-hour visit to Kuujjuaq “a whirlwind.”

“It’s always amazing to get up there and sing a song that you wrote at your kitchen table and have everyone singing it along with you,” Reid told Nunatsiaq News Aug. 11, the morning after the show.

“I was blown away — I had no idea that my work had made it so far north.”

Originally from Lanark, Scotland, Reid is no stranger to Canada — his family moved to Ontario when he was a teen, and he studied at Bishop’s University in Lennoxville, Que.

A fellow Bishop’s alumnus living in Kuujjuaq, Isabelle Dubois, got in touch with the singer earlier this year to see if he might be willing to fit a trip to Nunavik into his summer touring schedule.

“It might be a bit selfish, but I’d never been up here before and I’ve always had a curiosity,” Reid said.

Reid charmed his audience, holding the microphone out for the crowd to sing along and inviting young throat singers on stage.

He even sang one tune live over an online chat with the daughter of Kuujjuaq mayor Tunu Napartuk, who couldn’t be there in person.

“He really gave his heart out last night and included the crowd in every way possible,” said Isabelle Dubois, who photographed the event for Nunatsiaq News.

Reid promised the crowd he’d return to play Kuujjuaq again in 2017.

But Reid was just one performer in a full and talented line-up Aug. 10, including the Kuujjuaq Youth Group, William Tagoona, Innu singer/songwriter David Hart and magician “Jimiini” Jimmy Tommy Kumarluk.

The festival continues Aug. 11 with an even bigger line-up of local and even international acts, among them: Johnny, Rhoda & Lizzie; Salluit-raised Elisapie Isaac; and Iqaluit’s Jerry Cans.

The festival runs until Aug. 14.