Six String Nation

The Six String Nation guitar, Voyageur, is made from sixty-seven pieces of Canadian history: Pierre Trudeau's canoe paddle is a tone bar, the Grey Nuns convent in Winnipeg-once a classroom to Louis Riel-makes up the back and sides, Paul Henderson's hockey stick from the 1972 Canada/Russia Summit Series is a detail on the pickguard, the sacred Golden Spruce of Haida Gwaii forms the top face and gold from Maurice Richard's 1955-56 Stanley Cup ring adorns the ninth fret.

Thanks to a crazed determination to share this guitar and his impassioned vision of Canada with as many Canadians as possible, Taylor has taken the guitar to festivals, conferences, schools and community events, from sea to sea to sea. Along the way, countless citizens have added their own definitions of what it means to be Canadian, either through music or the very act of engaging with this object that is at once artifact and living instrument. Six String Nation allows them to, literally, hold history in their hands-and add a little harmony of their own.

Illustrated with documentary photos and gorgeous portraits of the people that Voyageur has encountered, Six String Nation chronicles the journey of one special guitar, from conception through construction to the road it still travels across our land.