Logan Staats wins two Ontario Folk Music Awards; Aysanabee named Recording Artist of the Year

Logan Staats won two honours at the 2026 Ontario Folk Music Awards, Performing Artist of the Year and the Culture in Climate Award, Folk Canada announced. Aysanabee was named Recording Artist of the Year.

The 32nd annual awards took place October 14 at The Studio in Hamilton as part of the Folk Canada Conference. Terra Lightfoot hosted, and the evening featured performances by Vicki Brittle, Kazdoura and three of this year's winners, Tanika Charles, Staats and Jonathan Nvita, the organizer said.

Staats, a Mohawk singer-songwriter from Six Nations, "has turned the itinerant life of a touring musician into a tool for land defence," Folk Canada said when it named him this year's Culture in Climate recipient. The organization says he anchors his tour dates around frontline action, spent extended stretches at the Fairy Creek action camps in 2025, performs the Mohawk water song with audiences to open conversations about water rights, and runs youth songwriting workshops grounded in Indigenous culture.

Now in its second year, the Culture in Climate Award recognizes an individual, organization or company in Canada's folk music sector that has "demonstrated outstanding commitment to climate action and environmental responsibility," according to Folk Canada. Each Ontario Folk Music Award is adjudicated by a jury of industry professionals, the organization says.

Aysanabee, who is Oji-Cree, Sucker Clan of the Sandy Lake First Nation, a fly-in community in northwestern Ontario, according to his official biography, won Recording Artist of the Year. Folk Canada gives the award to the act with "the greatest achievements within the current eligibility period."

Other winners included Tanika Charles for Album of the Year (Reasons To Stay), Rebekah Hawker for Song of the Year ("Quit My Habit"), Frank Mighty for Music Video of the Year ("Been Done") and Jonathan Nvita for the Colleen Peterson Songwriting Award, presented by the Ontario Arts Council, for "Kaku 'Grandma'." The Estelle Klein awards went to Coco Love Alcorn for Community Builder and Chris White for Lifetime Achievement.