Tuesday 29 August 2017

Book ~ "Skinheads, Fur Traders, and DJs: An Adventure Through the 1970s" (2017) Kim Clarke Champniss

From Goodreads ~ A true story of an adventurous pop-loving teenager who, in the early 1970s, went from London's discotheques to the Canadian sub-arctic to work for the Hudson's Bay Company. His job? Buying furs and helping run the trading post in the settlement of Arviat (then known as Eskimo Point), Northwest Territories (population: 750). 

That young man was Kim Clarke Champniss, who would later become a VJ on MuchMusic. His extraordinary adventures unfolded in a chain of On the Road experiences across Canada. His mind-boggling journey, from London, to the far Canadian North, to the spotlight, is the stuff of music and TV legends. 

Kim brings his incredible knowledge of music and pop culture and the history of disco music, weaving them into this wild story of his exciting and uniquely crazy 1970s. 

I remember Kim Clarke Champniss when he was a VJ for MuchMusic in the 1980s.  This book is about his life in the 1970s.

Kim was raised in London, England.  With no prospects and looking for adventure, he moved to Canada when he was 19 to work in the small community of Eskimo Point (now called Arviat) in the North for the Hudson's Bay Company.  There his life was very different than what he left in London ... there were no fancy clothes or radio which must have been quite the adjustment for a young man used to dancing in clubs often.  He was living among the Inuits who made their living hunting and fishing.  He still has fond memories of his time there and the people he met.  Once he fulfilled his year obligation, he moved to Winnipeg, Calgary, Vancouver and even Australia.  He eventually settled back in Vancouver, enrolled in university and got a job DJing in clubs (disco was all the rage at the time).

I liked the writing style and found his story interesting.  Not only is it about what was happening with the author in the 1970s but he also describes what was happening in the world at that time ... in music, TV, movies, fashion and politics.  As a head's up, there is swearing.

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