Songwriter inspired by Karluk Lake

The Grammy-nominated, Scottish-born musician spent a week last October in a cabin with little more than a view of Kodiak bears, mountains and Karluk Lake to bring inspiration for new music.

Her song “Century Trail” tells a story using her experience with Kodiak’s landscape, refuge, wildlife and culture.

 “I tried to embrace the complexity of celebrating this place,” Tunstall said in a statement. “It’s easy for us to visit and take photos, but this is home to these communities and wildlife. This song is a tribute to the line of history and ancestry, from way back when the bears made their way to Kodiak Island across the ice, all the way to present day.”

The project was part of nonprofit Sustain Music and Nature’s Songscape program, which brings musicians to public lands across the United States to inspire new music and create a music video filmed on location during the residency. Tunstall’s project involved collaboration between the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Sustain, Primary Wave Music and Koniag Inc.

During her residency, Tunstall learned about Alutiiq culture and some of Kodiak’s history, spending time with community members, visiting the Alutiiq Museum, and beading with a local Alutiiq artist, Kayla McDermott.

“I’ve never been anywhere like it. It’s an incredibly powerful and [effecting] landscape, full of ancient rock and rivers, all teeming with brilliant life. The whole experience has had a deep and lasting effect on me,” Tunstall said in a statement.  

The title and central image of the song comes from the lasting imprints, sometimes called century trails, bears have formed across the mountain ridges of Kodiak as they walk in the same tracks over generations.

“As human culture, we cave painted, we wrote on stone, we made artifacts, pottery, jewelry, all these things that told stories. I like to think of these century trails as bears’ way of leaving a history of their own culture,” Tunstall said in a statement. “And it was just such a poetic idea and an amazing real-life metaphor for history and stories of the land, told by bears.”

The music video for the track can be watched and listened to on KT Tunstall’s YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRkANToQas8.