The National Aboriginal Music Countdown (NAMC) has a Lheidli rung on its Top 40 ladder.
Sister Rain has done well for local singer-songwriter Kym Gouchie.
It was one of the tracks on the CBC Searchlight longlist this past spring, and the tune heads into autumn as the
No. 1 song in Canada by an aboriginal artist.
"I watched it climb. When I first saw it on the charts it was in April, that was at No. 37," said Gouchie.
"I kept checking each week. When it got to No. 4 I started to think 'Oh my goodness, what if? What if?'"
The "what" turned out to be an involuntary screech when she spotted the apex single digit beside her name as she checked the website en route between two gigs this past weekend, in between Woof Stock at Vivian Lake and the Roots Music Festival at the Pineview Hall.
Making the moment even sweeter was the presence of her mother at the Roots Music Festival, where she delivered the news to the public from the stage. The elder Gouchie is of an advanced age, making it rare to get out very often to see her musical daughter perform. By coincidence, she was there, as the Gouchie family legacy took another big step.
"As you know, my brothers are quite the musicians as well," said Gouchie of her siblings Buddy and Mike.
"I witnessed my brother Mike be on the countdown, and I have been in a department store hearing Mike playing on the overhead sound system, and that inspired me. One day I wanted him to have that from me, and now it's happening," she said.
"He told me about it. He works in Fort McMurray now, and he hardly ever gets out because he's working so much, but the other day he was driving down the highway and he turned on the radio, and there was my voice singing Sister Rain. He couldn't believe it - hearing me so unexpectedly in another province like that."
A lot of B.C. got to hear the song live this summer. Gouchie performed at 19 different events.
She happened to glance down at her odometer as she approached Wells for the ArtsWells Festival gig she was heading to when she noticed how close she was to 3,000 kilometres for the summer.
She filmed it roll over that number, and if she shot the same odometer today it would now exceed 5,000.
"I actually have travel anxiety, so I have had to overcome an issue there to get myself to these festivals and events," she said.
Perhaps it's ironic that her favourite of them all was the Pineview event - a miniature festival compared to most of the others, with a purposefully smaller audience but passionate about golden age country and old-time fiddling, but also, she was surprised to learn, her indigenous brand of music.
The fact she was even invited, as a representative of the Lheidli T'enneh First Nation, gave her a warm sense of inclusion. She found herself reciprocating by adding extra oomph to her presentation.
"The whole purpose of that festival was to close gaps between music styles and cultures, and it brought out a lot of elders and people from all walks of life, from Smithers, Terrace, all over the Prince George area, and to be honest with you, they were packed to the rafters and the energy was so authentic and genuine and real and so when I got up to sing, it turned from a dance into a concert and I felt people listening to my music from their hearts.
"There were tears, and some of the audience came up afterwards and couldn't get words out because they were fighting emotions, so that was a real gift I received."
Those deeper emotions came somewhat from a particular song.
Sister Rain is dancing on the rooftops of the Canadian charts, but her tune For The People might be more famous in a quieter way.
It is one of the tracks gathered into an album by the Truth & Reconciliation Commission as an artistic expression on the Indian residential school atrocity committed against many elders in Gouchie's own life.
She got to know additional depths of that cultural genocide attempt when she was hired by an Okanagan-based aboriginal group to preserve the oral histories of elders in that area.
To go from mainstream culture trying to snuff your heritage out to calling up for your cultural representation is new and, said Gouchie, a fortunate position for her to be in as one of those designated ones by the Lheidli T'enneh people.
"I find I am often opening shows as an elder - I am one of those myself now, officially - because concert organizers are now recognizing territorial protocols, but then I also get to perform so it has created an amazing way for me to take in these events. I get to feel it all. And it created this intense connection to the Roots Music Festival for me."
Sister Rain was produced by painter, jazz musician and music producer Thurein Myint at Ellis Avenue Analog Studio in Summerland.
It was then mastered by superstar B.C. sound engineer Greg Reely (Sarah McLachlan, Coldplay, Tea Party, Delirium, etc.).
Quality recording was one of the reasons the song made the national chart in the first place.
The positional calculation is made by NAMC personnel based first on a quality control assessment, then daily monitoring of a song's number of plays and fan requests each week at the member stations in the Western Association of Aboriginal Broadcasters (WAAB) network.
Retail sales are not considered because the majority of the artists involved are independent performers who do not sell their wares through an evenly monitored system like SoundScan or iTunes.
It's a chart that has been on the national music scene for the past 17 years, founded by Manitoba radio station Native Communications Incorporated-FM, which remains the base of the chart's operations. It grew to nationwide status in 2008 when it was sanctioned by the WAAB.
It is presented as a Top 40 countdown on a show each week hosted by Taylor Galvin and broadcast on all WAAB member stations (these are based in Whitehorse, Yellowknife, Terrace, Edmonton, La Ronge, Winnipeg, Sioux Lookout and Mistissini Lake-Chibougamau).
It was founded by broadcaster and music history buff David McLeod who still serves as the show's executive producer.
The music includes all First Nations artists (including Metis and Inuit acts) based in Canada, the United States, New Zealand and Australia.
Sister Rain was at No. 9 on the chart at last posting. Making contact with any of the WAAB stations, especially Native Communications Incorporated-FM in Winnipeg, to request the song could keep it in a high position longer into the fall season.
