There is a moment, Liv Wade says, when you find something that changes how you understand yourself. For her, it came in a piece of paper—a single fact about her birth mother, a woman who had once been crowned Fur Queen at the Northern Manitoba Trappers Festival in The Pas. Wade was young when she received that information, legally old enough to begin searching for her birth family but still new enough to the world of her Métis roots that she had no idea what a Fur Queen even was. She found out. She travelled to The Pas in her early twenties and attended the festival herself—a week-long celebration dating back to 1948 that brings together northern communities for traditional competitions and the storied Fur Queen pageant.
That journey, and the heritage it opened up, anchors the title track of Wade's new five-song EP, Fur Queen. A rollicking, fiddle-driven country number that stands out from the rest of the record, the song is both a tribute and a homecoming—a way of honouring her birth mother's place in northern life while pulling that history into the light.
Fur Queen is Wade's most wide-ranging release yet, moving from country through alt-folk into bolder pop territory, while maintaining the atmospheric depth fans of her work have come to expect. The EP showcases her evolution as a musician and storyteller grounded in Métis identity and northern heritage.
