A Pine Point Story (2025)

for SATB choir and piano

A Pine Point Story
CA$3.00

Text: Stuart Beatch (b. 1991)
Duration: 6.5 minutes
Difficulty: 2/4

Commissioned by the Yellowknife Choral Society.
To be premiered by Aurora Chorealis in April 2026.

A Pine Point Story was commissioned in 2025 by the Yellowknife Choral Society. For this project, the choir wanted to tell the story of Everett Klippert, a resident of the Northwest Territories who was the last person in Canada to be charged and imprisoned for homosexuality. Members of the choir embarked on a creative writing process to develop their own reflections on this story and how it resonates in 2025. I distilled these ideas into a short libretto which takes aspects of Klippert’s own story told from his perspective, combining them with poetic interpolations and instructions for the next generation. The music opens with rich, sparkling harmonies to set the mood of the northern climate, progressing into a series of rollicking sections to share the foundation of Klippert’s story. A poignant middle section describes the longing and isolation from within his jail cell before flashing forward to the present day, asking the important question: “What can we do to repair the harm?” As the music comes to a quiet close, we acknowledge how this story remains a part of us, our land, and our community.

Click here to see the complete score.

Live recording currently unavailable. MIDI available on request.

About Everett Klippert (1926-1996)

Klippert was born in Kindersley, Saskatchewan and raised in Calgary, Alberta. He had already been imprisoned once for his sexuality before moving to Pine Point (a newly established mining town in the Northwest Territories) to get a fresh start working as a mechanic. In 1965, he was questioned by police over an unrelated arson case, and admitted to having had homosexual encounters with four different men. As a result, he was arrested and imprisoned indefinitely as a dangerous sexual offender who was “incurably homosexual”.

Despite Klippert’s case playing a major role in the decriminalization of homosexuality in 1969, he remained in prison until 1971, now having spent a decade of his life in prison for his sexuality. He returned to Alberta to live a quiet life until his death in 1996. Thanks to the efforts of his family and lawyer Brian Crane (who also defended Klippert in 1967 as part of an unsuccessful appeal to the Supreme Court), Klippert’s charges were formally expunged by the Parole Board of Canada in 2020, and his case was later designated as a National Historic Event in 2025.

Full Text

written by the composer, based on reflections by members of the Yellowknife Choral Society

In this place of pines and stars that point north,
Where sun and moon share impossible skies:
A humble journeyman, a victimless crime,
The next step of a revolution.

In this place, we carry this story.
We are living this story again and again.
In this place, the land will expose injustice. 

Fear drove me north to a new beginning.
Let me work. Let me put my head down and work.
With my hands, my back, my whole being.
Let me live. Let me hide. Let me run.

Do you love who I am? Do you love the parts they tell us are wrong?
They say “there’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.”
But in this place, we fight. Still, we fight.

I want to feel your beard in my fingers. Is that so wrong?
I want to feel your skin against my skin, your breath in my ear.
I want to expand in all directions, as river flows into lake,
With no distinction between us.

Behind these bars, the sun still shines through,
Only window-frames holding me back.
Behind these bars, I still smell the rain,
Knowing that change will come.
My freedom will be for us all.

Now I’m gone. Pine Point is gone.
Apologies made, records expunged.
What can we do to repair the harm?

For now: move forward.
Welcome your neighbours with open arms.
Be true to your heart and live with love.
If you can, take my story.
Fly it high like a kite for everyone to see.
My story will become a star in your sky.

Now this story, this place, this moment is a part of us.

Text © Stuart Beatch, 2025.