The Walters Cultural Arts Center is bringing our northern neighbors to Hillsboro. Meet The Wardens: Canadian national park rangers by day, and musical trio by night, performing on Friday, November 22 at 7:30 pm.

With haunting three-part harmonies and chilling tales, the band’s mountain music—blending folk, roots, and western styles—reflects Canada's protected wilderness areas. Celebrating the return of wild buffalo, wrangling grizzly bears, lonely nights on the pack trail, and reflecting on an environment in crisis, a performance by The Wardens has been dubbed “the quintessential mountain-culture concert experience."

Tickets are $25 in advance and $28 day of show and can be purchased through TicketSpice.

The Wardens don’t just sing about the land, they’re part of it. The Rocky Mountain-based band’s stories and songs rise from the very land they’ve protected as Canadian national park wardens collectively for over 50 years.

Ray Schmidt founded The Wardens in 2009 with Scott Ward during the national park warden centennial after discovering the rich depth of music and stories within this region of Canada. Their Deputy Warden, Scott Duncan, has played fiddle with the band since 2017.

There are few places in the world where wilderness exists in abundance, where you can jump on a horse or slip on hiking boots and disappear for weeks on end.

Don’t miss The Wardens as they bring these experiences to the stage, painting a picture so vivid that you’ll almost “smell the Pine forests and hear the Grizzly Bear in the woods.” (My Musix Blog)