Along the way, McKennitt managed to keep her mind fresh by learning about various cultures and their traditions, topics that would eventually inform her writing. Decades after the release of her debut album, 1985’s Elemental, she remains the ultimate observer.
McKennitt has only ever called three places home: Morden, Man., where she was born; Winnipeg, where she lived during her university days; and Stratford, Ont., where she has lived since 1981. At some point in the future, McKennitt expects to add Saltspring Island to her list of lived-there locales.
Her mother, Irene, moved to the Gulf Island in 1994, following the death of McKennitt’s father, Jack. McKennitt visited her mother often, when her tour schedule allowed. When Irene became ill in 2009, McKennitt moved her east to her own home in Stratford and cared for her until Irene’s death in 2011.
In the years since, McKennitt has become the caretaker of her mother’s beloved Saltspring home. She is fond of the property, in that it reminds her of her own farm-like place outside Stratford. In fact, McKennitt was enjoying a rare moment of respite last week in the backyard of her Stratford backyard when the Times Colonist caught up with her.
“Usually, at this time of day, I am at my desk at the office,” she said, the sound of birds tweeting in the background. “But I am working from my desk at home outside.”
She has adopted a slower tour schedule in recent years, having learned the importance of taking stock, such as she did during her mother’s illness. McKennitt imagines she will spend more and more time on Saltspring as she grows older. “I can foresee that increasing over time,” she said.
“I am no longer prepared to play the game to the degree I once was.”
There is a string of dots that connect her home bases past and present, McKennitt said. The foundation of each, up to and including Saltspring, is a fondness for the arts.
“As a human being, I enjoy and feel much more enriched being in communities that have a spectrum of artistic expression and quick or easy access to the natural world.”
It has been that way for much of her life. McKennitt had dreams of becoming a veterinarian, but the folk scene in Winnipeg was burgeoning while she was in university and she was swept right along with it. “Music chose me rather than me it,” she said.
“When it became apparent that one way or another I was going to be [in the arts], it was like a realization of something in yourself that you hadn’t really realized before.”
Music remains a priority for McKennitt. A voracious reader who is constantly in search of new experiences, she often looks at travel as something that could add to her musical palette.
As part of her search for material that would comprise her first album of new material since 2010, McKennitt found herself on a fact-finding trip to Rajasthan, India. McKennitt has a keen interest in the history of the Celts and spent her three weeks in India connecting the early Celts to the northern part of the country.
For her, the history of the medieval peoples of Europe remains purely a hobby — even though, by this point, she knows far more about the history than your average European. “I have used music as a form of musical travel writing, but I’m certainly not an academic,” she said with a laugh.
Not everything that influences McKennitt comes from ancient scrolls. She recently finished reading The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, Nicholas Carr’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated book. She has been interested in brain development for years, but the book brought everything into clearer view.
“I’m encountering more and more people who are fatigued from the many different kinds of pressures that have come onto us as a result of this technological tsunami. I am quite preoccupied by what computers and the Internet are doing to the human brain, as well as many aspects of our life.”
She still tours, although much less than she has in the past. McKennitt’s concert tonight in Vancouver at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre is her first since 2007. The measured pace is by design, said McKennitt, who manages herself and the record label (Quinlan Road) that releases her music. “Hopefully, we don’t overextend our welcome.”
She has booked her first tour of Latin America in October, with performances on deck for Brazil and Argentina. While she isn’t expecting any revelations to spring forth, stranger things have happened, she said.
If nothing else, she just may find the material she has been searching for. The journey alone will be worth it, McKennitt said. “It is great to continue to feel like you’re breathing life into corners of your career.”