Maria Dunn

She often finds those that spark in stories from history. Dunn has written about a mining strike in Cape Breton, a hunger march in Edmonton, the life of a miner in Depression-era Alberta, the feelings of those left behind after a shooting in Quebec, and the stories of people from varied countries who built their lives in the new-to-them land of Canada. Dunn is herself an immigrant to Canada, "though my situation was very different: I was born in Scotland, and my family emigrated to Canada when I was a baby, and my father had a good job. Still, I think that has helped me understand their feelings, their stories," she said.

Dunn didn't start out to be a musician, though she always loved music, and there was music in her home. "Mum played piano, and I remember dad sitting around campfires singing Johnny Cash songs, Lonnie Donegan songs, things like that. They were active in their church; they had a band, which I think they even got my brother and me involved in for a while when we were teenagers," she recalled. "I studied classical piano, and I knew I loved music, but I knew I wasn't going to be a classical pianist. Like many young people trying to decide what to do, I looked around; I couldn't see any other sort of musical career than that," she said. She decided to go for a degree in psychology at the University of Alberta, "and I took a number of music options there, explored several areas in music, on the side." One of those paths brought her to the campus community-radio station. She ended up having a show at the station for more than a dozen years. "That was really my education in all the great songs, all the great folk music that's out there," she said. Dunn started going to folk clubs in Edmonton, and "getting up there with my guitar and playing traditional music, and country sort of music, and then that gradually turned into writing my own songs," she said. "I would say Edmonton, where I've lived for so long now, is the kind of city where there's so much available in terms of the arts, theater, and music, but it's not such a big place that it's difficult to get involved."