Where the romance of train hopping, the coziness of a Yellowknife shack and the crackle of an old country record on the stereo meet you have the makings of a Ryan McCord show — many thanks to Janna Graham for that eloquent bio intro. Here on my website, you’ll mostly find stuff that’s relevant to my music (although no EPK at the moment; that’s something I’m working on. In the meantime feel free to reach out via the info on the contact page). I do like to post about other stuff that I’ve been working on too, though. You can also take a look at the ‘categories’ tab over on the lower right, and see if there’s anything that interests you. Or try out the search function if there’s something you’re looking for.
It was a real honour this year to be able to take part in my sixth Snowkings’ Winter Festival Snow Carving Symposium! This year marked the event’s tenth year.
This year, I worked with Joel Maillet (long time Snowking crew member “The Avalanche Kid”) and Graham Henning. Joel has been living out in Prince Edward Island the last few years, but makes his way back to Yellowknife when he can, either to play in the snow, or occasionally to work as a window cleaner (his and my summer careers). Graham is a friend of Joel’s from art school, a really talented sculptor with a great eye for the shapes he’s looking for. He lives in London, Ontario.
I think it was Joel’s idea to carve a piece of popcorn in snow. Graham embraced the idea and apparently spent several months exploring the essence of popcorn. He did some modelling in styrofoam as well as some practice carving on a 7X7X7 foot cube of snow down in London. Joel, for his part, apparently popped four giant bowls of popcorn before finding the quintessential piece of popped corn. This piece, which became known as “The Kernal,” he photographed from four sides as well as the top, but he also kept the original, and it became the primary reference maquette while carving the block.
“The Kernal” sat in this protective case on top of our team sign out by the carving for over three weeks, for anyone who noticed it to appreciate. I brought it home after the end of the month to take this photo, and to keep it on a shelf for all eternity.
The first day of carving (of three days in this case) involves the most moving of snow. Huge chunks and whole sections of the thousand cubic foot block of snow are sloughed off to ease the carving that is to follow.
(Olivia Mater Photo).
The Snowkings’ Snow Carving Symposium is a wonderful event bringing carvers together from around the world. This year, we had returning teams from Spain, Texas, and across Canada, as well as teams from Estonia and Finland, here for their first time. There is much more camaraderie than competitiveness, and teams are sometimes seen helping each other out. Here Graham and I are helping Larry MacFarlane (Team Sundogs) and Martin Rehak (Team Bouche-trous) to lift a heavy block of snow up onto the top of the latter team’s carving, using the scaffold plank as a lifting platform:
(Olivia Mater Photo).
By the second day, things start to take some shape. It’s already starting to look, as Graham put it, ‘popcorny’:
(Olivia Mater Photo). I should note that although the original carving block measured 10X10X10 feet, we were allowed to add to its original size by a certain amount. It would not be very obvious after the fact, but we did add some snow blocks to the carving to make it nearly twelve feet long. In this picture, it’s the lower “lobe” of the popcorn, directly in front of the scoop shovel. Later, we also added an unpopped kernel near the back.
By the end of the third day, we were mostly done, which gave us plenty of time on the fourth morning to focus on some finishing details (a nice pace of work compared to some of my previous carvings, which have felt like non-stop endurance marathons of carving). Here is “POP!” as we presented it in its finished form:
I showed the following night picture to my four-year-old daughter. She said “daddy you didn’t carve a popcorn, you carved a skeleton [skull]”:
We had a nice cold March here in Yellowknife, and as of April 1, most of the carvings are still holding up very well. Often they droop and warp in amazing ways as the weight of the snow bends them downward over time. The changes to “POP!” have been very subtle so far. Here’s how it looked on March 31:
Also on March 31, here’s “Tom”, as carved by the Spanish team “Barcelona Forever!” All weekend, they were playing Tom Waits music while they worked, but it took me a couple of days to see what they were actually doing. It turned out beautifully and has held up really well, with the exception that there was a wall behind his back that started to lean too much and had to be partially removed.
In the early part of the Snowking castle-building season, I sometimes have a bit of time to do some creative carving before starting on my main project, which is overseeing the construction of the ice slides.
This year, King Marty One-Boot asked me to come up with a design for the backstage entrance to the castle. Without too much thought, I drew up a sketch for a simple way of building that section of wall and door. Then I took a day off. What I had drawn as a three-foot thick wall ended up being nearly six feet thick. The door was placed about where I expected, but the windows were a bit different than I’d envisioned, and much deeper in the snow. With a bit of grumbling, I took it upon myself to start working on revealing the windows and door that were buried in the wall. Snowking suggested cutting some of the snow off of the corners of the exterior face. Before long, I felt pretty committed to the project of carving the entire backstage entrance area. After a few days of carving, I decided that it was “finished enough,” and moved on to other jobs.
January 16, 2026. Early in the shaping of the wall and doorway. I had already built the stairway and “loading dock” in the foreground, and people were already using the entrance regularly, so I had to do some creative scaffolding to access the upper wall efficiently. Here you can see the rustic plumb bob (nail tied to string) that I sometimes use to get vertical lines.
January 16, 2026. About three hours after the earlier photo, I was happy with the upper part of the wall. It could always be touched up by ladder if needed.
A typical view of the castle from the shoreline of Great Slave Lake in the early part for construction. This is how far along it was on January 20, 2026. Some of Mr. Freeze’s ice works are in the foreground.
I was lucky enough recently to have my song selected for the 2022 Western Arctic Moving Pictures 48 Hour Music Video Competition!
Nancy MacNeill and Maia Lepage put together this great little video capturing some elements of Yellowknife summer as well as the legendary Gold Range Hotel (brief cameo of Ernie Constant).
I want to take a minute and thank some of the folks who have given me some radio play lately! First and foremost, Samantha Stuart at Cabin Radio here in Yellowknife, who will be featuring From the Railyard to the Woodyard on her show, Cabin Country, on Tuesday night, January 26, 2021, from 8-10 PM (with repeat broadcast on Saturday January 30, 5-7). We will be talking about the album, life in Yellowknife, and some other stories…
Also a quick thanks and shout out to Alberto Basarte in Spain and his show Blue Moon Kentucky, and Sean Burns from Boots and Saddle on CKUW in Winnipeg, for including me on their shows!
Just want to say thanks to Brian Saunderson down in Kamloops, BC, for featuring me on his online radio show, Hurtin For Real! Episode 932, part 2, week of January 29, 2021.
A couple years ago on HFR #777, I did a show of all songs about Stompin' Tom Connors. There's a new song that would have fit right in, off Ryan McCord's brand new record… https://t.co/Rix1rtJWRe Rest of the album's good, too. Solid twang from Yellowknife. #Yellowknifepic.twitter.com/qpKO9eZ3db
Back in 2014, or maybe 2013, just minutes before I was getting on the plane to California to record my first album, Janna Graham and I went out to the ice of Great Slave Lake to make some sound recordings of vintage ice saws cutting the ice. Now, after six years, Terry Woolf has put together this beautiful video of my friends and I harvesting ice for Snowking’s Winter Festival. I believe that the footage is shot by Terry, Anthony Foliot and Wade Carpenter, all on their phones. Thank you Terry!
The new album goes on sale on Monday December 21, 2020! It’s called From the Railyard to the Woodyard. There’s Vinyl, CD, and Digital. I’m super-excited to share it with you! Recorded back in February, in Nanton, Alberta, with producer Steve Loree and a great group of musicians (Brad Brouwer, Paul Holden, Jimmy Roy, Scott Duncan, John Gorham).
Here in Yellowknife, the album will be available at a couple of my favourite local stores: Weaver and Devore, and the Down to Earth Gallery. Please note that Weaver’s will only carry the vinyl for the first few days (it takes a lot of counter space), and that Down to Earth Gallery is not open on Mondays.
You can also find the album online. For online orders of Vinyl or CD, or for digital downloads, please check out ryanmccord.bandcamp.com. Another option if you’re in Yellowknife is to call or text me at 444-0322. You can listen on Soundcloud. If everything goes as planned, it will be available on all the major streaming platforms too.
Ryan McCord 