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Kristina Olsen has been on the road since May. She has played stages in Australia in the middle of that country’s winter, and she has driven the long highways of […]
Published 5:30 am Saturday, September 26, 2026Kristina Olsen will be opening the Home Routes season in Fort St. James on Sept. 26. Kristina Olsen has been on the road since May.
She has played stages in Australia in the middle of that country’s winter, and she has driven the long highways of Alberta and northern British Columbia. Along the way, the San Francisco-born folk singer has been doing something she didn’t expect: falling for Canada. Olsen, who recently became a Canadian citizen, is opening this year’s Home Routes season in Fort St. James.
It is her first tour with the national house-concert network, and she took time to talk with the Caledonia Courier while travelling through the province’s north. She had played Tumbler Ridge the night before and was headed to Mackenzie that evening.
“I married a Canadian man 12 years ago, and I just became a Canadian citizen,” she said. “So it’s kind of a magic time of discovering, well, not only the beauty of Canada, of course. ” Olsen said she hasn’t travelled widely in the country, and Home Routes has changed that.
“I’m getting to see all sorts of incredible places and interacting with communities in such a welcoming and beautifully generous way,” she said. Olsen was born in San Francisco and later lived in the Venice neighbourhood of Los Angeles, where she was living when she met her husband. She said “home” is a loose idea in her line of work. She tours about 10 months of the year and is rarely in one place for long.
Her husband moved south to join her about 12 years ago, and she has since become a dual citizen. Her current route reflects that life. She played a gig in Vancouver, then drove to Calgary, where she performed with a friend at a show that wasn’t part of Home Routes. From there she headed north to Grimshaw, Alta.
, which she believes was her first Home Routes stop, and spent some time “swirling around” Alberta before crossing into B.C. Home Routes, also known as Chemin Chez Nous, links touring musicians with small communities. It is led by co-artistic and executive directors Leonard Podolak and Cathy Crawford. Olsen said the arrangement solves a problem many touring artists face.
It brings musicians “who normally wouldn’t be able to afford” to reach small communities into those places. Because the dates are strung together, she said, each night is a solid enough gig that artists can cover their costs and earn something.
“It’s such a rare thing that Leonard and Cathy have put together,” she said. “It’s hard to say in words what a rich community-building thing this is. ” For Olsen, the generosity is part of the appeal.
“There’s just such an outpouring of kindness and generosity and welcoming,” she said. “It’s fantastic. ” The welcome has reached well beyond the concert hall. At one stop on First Nations land, Olsen and her travelling companion stayed in a lodge overlooking a lake.
The next day, one of the elders invited them to see a number of places on the territory. Her stop in Tumbler Ridge held particular weight. Olsen said she had worried about the toll on the community from the tragedy it suffered earlier this year. What she found was a town “in rebuilding form” that was warm to the outsiders who came through.
She was also surprised by who filled the room. She said the region’s mining and geotechnical industries draw workers from around the world, making for a broader community than she had expected. Olsen admitted she had come north with a few doubts.
“I don’t know if this California girl is going to be very relevant in these places,” she said. The concerts settled that.
“They’re all humans, and they’re all just beautiful. ” Asked to describe her music, Olsen said that narrowing it down is the hardest part. Her listening tastes are wide-ranging, and so is her writing. She settles on acoustic folk, blues and jazz, and plays a lot of instruments.
She is travelling with four on this trip, and she will sit down at a piano when one is available. She said that variety suits regional audiences. In a big city, a jazz fan can go to a jazz show and won’t expect a banjo tune in the middle of it, or a piece on concertina.
In smaller communities, she said, the room is often a mix of blues lovers, jazz lovers, folk fans and people who just want “some entertainment that’s unique and different. ” “That’s something I have to offer,” she said.
“A typical show of mine doesn’t stay in one genre for the whole night. ”The tour still has a long way to go. Olsen will wind her way west to Prince Rupert, where the Home Routes dates end. She will then catch a ferry to northern Vancouver Island for a couple of workshops and teaching gigs, before heading back to California.
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