Cori Brewster
Cori Brewster is a singer songwriter. She has released five CD’s, performed across Canada, Germany, and New Zealand, taught songwriting workshops, and co-wrote songs with some masterful songwriters. She is currently polishing a project called 55 ~ 5 Songs 5 Stories (memoir essay collection)to be released in 2025.
Cori’s intention while at the Wallace Stegner House is to begin a new project. The re-storying of her family’s history. The Brewster’s first arrived in Banff in 1881. They were white colonial settlers who displaced indigenous peoples when they arrived. Peoples who have inhabited the area in and around present-day Banff for more than 10,000 years. Cori acknowledges the harm that was caused to their indigenous friends, in particular friends of the Stoney Nakoda in that appropriation.
The Rocky Mountains are very much in her DNA. Cori was born in Banff, and her family are now seven generations in the Bow Valley. She has a deep history and heritage in this mountain town. Born into privilege she feels now is time to look into the mirror of that history, a family history, a legacy family history, without looking away, and attempt to come to terms with the complexities of that privilege and entitlement. The historical luggage she carries is heavy.
Cori’s goal is to work towards repair and reparations, to bare witness, to atone, to decolonize, to know and love what we have been given, to urge others to do the same and to acknowledge her responsibility to the future, to see what we have is borrowed and that we are all guests here. Yes, these are just words, like land acknowledgements can be, so its actions that are required.
Cori wants to be a good ancestor to the next generation while at the same time recognizing the resilience, skills, talents, hard work and many ambitions her family possessed.
While in Eastend, she is excited to walk in the wild, hike in hills, touch the land, smell the dirt, and embrace the sky, the stars, and the moon. This remote setting is ideal for solitude, meditation and contemplation. Cori hopes to bring her beginner’s mind, curiosity and reverence into this place of creativity and history. Cori is a mother, daughter, sister, aunt, friend, and Buddhist practitioner and loves to travel and experience other cultures. She moved back to the Bow Valley in 2000 to raise her son, River, and still happily lives in Canmore with her wife, Lori.
Website: https://www.coribrewster.com/