Joni Mitchell — Louis Riel Coffee House, Saskatoon

Joni Mitchell grew up in Saskatoon after her family moved from Alberta when she was young. It was here, as a teenager and young art student at the Alberta College of Art (after brief stints back and forth), that she began playing folk music in earnest. The Louis Riel Coffee House, a small folk venue popular with students and the local arts community, was one of the first places she performed publicly. She played covers and early original songs to small audiences in the early 1960s, honing the distinctive voice and guitar style that would later reshape popular music.

Saskatoon was formative but also constraining. Mitchell became pregnant in 1964 and gave birth to a daughter she placed for adoption — an experience she carried quietly for decades and that deeply informed her songwriting. Shortly after, she left Saskatchewan for Toronto's Yorkville folk scene, where she began writing the songs that would appear on her debut album. She rarely returned to Saskatoon, but the flat prairie landscape and wide-open skies of her youth echo throughout her music.

The Louis Riel Coffee House no longer exists as a venue. Like many small folk clubs of the early 1960s, it closed long ago. Saskatoon has since acknowledged Mitchell as one of its most significant cultural exports — the River Landing area features a tribute, and the city has hosted events in her honour. But in the early 1960s, she was just another young folk singer playing to a room of a few dozen people, with no idea what was coming.