BY THOMAS FLYNN
In the past few years, the idea of Canadians supporting Canadians has become important in every aspect of life, including the arts. Supporting Canadians isn’t new to the Huntsville Festival of the Arts, which has been dedicated to featuring and sharing the work of Canadian artists since its beginning in 1993. The 2026 summer lineup will be no different, featuring a vast collection of artists from across Canada.
The season gets off to a strong start with Adam Baldwin, a Nova Scotian musician, on stage at Huntsville’s Algonquin Theatre on July 2nd, bringing his unique blend of folk, rock, and maritime soul. William Prince comes to Huntsville on July 17th. Hailing from Manitoba, Prince won the Western Canadian Music Award for Aboriginal Artist of the Year in 2016 and two Juno Awards for Contemporary Roots Album of the Year, one in 2017 and the other in 2024.
On July 25th, the HfA will host the Canadian singer-songwriter Steven Page, one of the co-founders of the Barenaked Ladies. A Scarborough native, Page was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 2018, marking him as a key figure in Canadian Music. Page himself says, “the greatest of all being the fact that our music continues to be a part of so many Canadians’ lives.”
From the start, the Festival has featured many Canadian artists, including Jessie Cook, Natalie MacMaster, and hometown talent Hawksley Workman. To celebrate the opening of the Canadian Summit Center, the HfA brought in Blue Rodeo, followed a few years later by astronaut Colonel Chris Hadfield to perform with Huntsville High School’s Song Project backing him up.
Rob Saunders, the former General Manager of the HfA, tells the story of when John McDermott was playing in Huntsville and was nowhere to be found 15 minutes before the show. Saunders eventually found McDermott outside, greeting the people of Huntsville who had come to watch. As Sauders puts it, “He’s coming up shaking hands, and you know kind of hugging ladies, and they’re just all a titter, and I kind of go, John, you know any chance we kind of get backstage so we can actually start the show? But that’s the kind of guy he was.” Rob fondly remembers the HfA’s speaker series featuring Canadian Heroes such as General Roméo Dallaire and astronaut Roberta Bondar.
The interesting difference between now and how the festival started its support of Canadian art is the intentionality. According to Sauders, “I wouldn’t say the focus was on Canadian artists… but that was a reality of who you could afford.” Compare this perspective to that of today, where marking something or someone as Canadian is a selling point. At the start of the HfA, Canadian artists were the financial and practical choice. The thought wasn’t about getting Canadian artists because they were Canadian. The thought was to get the artist who was available, and the available artists just happened to be Canadian. “Don’t get me wrong,” says Saunders, “don’t read into this that I’m saying that we took what we could and it was a lesser thing. We just got focused on what we could afford.”
While booking Canadian acts may have started out as a financial practicality, it has evolved into a central element to HfA’s programming and mandate. Over the past 34 years, the festival has presented the work of thousands of Canadian Artists, celebrated their talents, and introduced them to eager local audiences. Whether they were presented at the Algonquin Theatre, or on the tennis courts of Grandview Resort, as they did in the early 2000s, or at Deerhurst Resort before that, HfA is proud to support Canadian artists and to celebrate this great nation through their music and art.
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