Six String Nation

The road to a definition of Canadian identity is strewn with the carcasses of countless academics, artists, intellectuals and politicians. Broadcaster Jowi Taylor decided to venture into this territory with an unusual vehicle: a guitar. Not as some quaint singer-songwriter but as a mad visionary traveller with an absolutely unique instrument slung over his shoulder. The Six String Nation guitar-nicknamed Voyageur-is an artwork in itself, made from sixty-odd pieces of Canadian history and heritage from all over the country: Pierre Trudeau's canoe paddle is a tone bar just inside the sound hole; the convent of the Grey Nuns in Winnipeg - once a classroom to Louis Riel - makes up much of the back and sides; Paul Henderson's hockey stick from the legendary 1972 Canada-Russia Summit Series is a detail on the pick guard: the Manoir of Louis Papineau is the centre of the guitar's neck; the sacred (and never before cut) Golden Spruce of Haida-Gwaii forms the top face of the guitar; and a fragment of gold from Maurice Richard's 1955-56 Stanley Cup ring adorns (appropriately) the 9th fret.