"Do you have any violins that you have outgrown?" Andrea Hansen usually manages to work this question shortly into any conversation these days. She is passionate about her role as head of the Strings Across the Sky Foundation that provides violins to music departments in Canadian Arctic Schools. Sometimes there is a violinist (fiddler) in the hamlet, but what if there's not? "No problem," says Hansen, "I'll give a workshop myself and get a music program started." And that is just what she does!

Adventure Canada, a Port Credit eco-tour company that leads Voyages of Discovery in the Canadian Arctic, heard about Andrea Hansen from a past traveler who thought it was a match made in heaven. Adventure Canada offers at least one expeditionary cruise in the Arctic each summer, emphasizing community interaction and often entertaining or being entertained in the community centers. So, would Andrea like to join them for High Arctic Adventure 2002 as the artist-in-residence? She was thrilled!

Hansen first fell in love with the Arctic when, as a member of the strings section of the Toronto Symphony's Odyssey Tour in 1987, she played for youngsters in the N.W.T. community of Aklavik. "Are you ever coming back?" they asked. "You bet." replied the perky blond with a twinkle that has fired this child prodigy since her first public performance at the age of four in Kenora.

Adventure Canada is pleased to welcome Order of Canada recipient Andrea Hansen on board the High Arctic Adventure 2002, August 25-September 4, 2002, as our musical ambassador. She joins an outstanding resource team including author Margaret Atwood, photographer Mike Beedell, geographer Denis St-Onge, art historian Carol Heppenstall, singer/songwriter Ian Tamblyn, author Graeme Gibson, Inuit culturalist Aaju Peter, curator Jean Blodgett, teacher and former archaeologist Jane Sproull Thomson, filmmaker John Houston and writer/photographer Danny Catt.

If you would like to travel with us, please call Adventure Canada at 1-800-363-7566 or 1-905-271-4000. If you have any violins you aren't using please call us as well. We'll be happy to add them to our cargo heading north!

Packages are commissionable to travel agents. Please contact Adventure Canada for details.