Willie Dunn, The Watchmen Albums Receive 2026 Slaight Family Polaris Heritage Prize Designation

Willie Dunn’s self-titled 1971 album and The Watchmen’s McLaren Furnace Room have received Slaight Family Polaris Heritage Prize designation.

The two new Heritage Prize winners were announced at the 2026 Polaris Concert & Award Ceremony, which took place at Toronto’s Massey Hall on September 22.

The Polaris Heritage Prize is a hall-of-fame critics prize and public support campaign celebrating classic Canadian albums created before Polaris began in 2006. Like the Polaris Music Prize album prize, winners and nominees of the Heritage Prize are albums of the highest artistic distinction, without regard to sales or affiliations. Each year, one album is selected by a public vote and one by the Polaris Heritage Prize jury.

Born in Montreal in 1941, the late Willie Dunn was an important Indigenous voice, not only as a musician, but also as a filmmaker. His self-titled 1971 album included the pointed anthem “I Pity The Country” and “The Ballad Of Crowfoot,” which inspired a same-named short film supported by the National Film Board of Canada.

Hailing from Winnipeg, The Watchmen’s 1992 debut album McLaren Furnace Room established the band as one of Canadian alternative rock’s most important voices. Recorded in the modest basement rehearsal space of the McLaren Hotel, the album featured breakthrough “Cracked” as well as the intense  “Run & Hide,” which confronted domestic violence.

Willie Dunn’s son Lawrence Dunn  provided the following statement:

Thank you to Polaris and the Slaight Family for honoring my father’s work. In the Grail legend, Parsifal heals a withered land by asking the wounded king: “Whom does the Grail serve?” On his 1971 Summus album, my father inverts that whole myth. He steps into Parsifal and merges the Grail and the sovereign into Crowfoot. In Grail lore king and land are one; Willie sees that bond but moves myth with history’s truth. The Grail’s holy water becomes Crowfoot’s tears. The wasteland isn’t a curse…it is colonial violence. Crowfoot is the wounded king. The light flows directly from the wound, and this is how our country of Canada is created. Willie forces the raw question: who is served by this suffering? He turns the mythic artifact into embodied grief with sanctity and sovereignty inseparable. Not an easy cure, but an enduring, luminous indictment of the crown.

The Watchmen’s Joey Serlin and Sammy Kohn said the following about McLaren Furnace Room:

“McLaren Furnace Room was where it all started for us, so to have people still connecting with the record more than 30 years later really means a lot. The fact that this award was voted on by the fans makes it even more special. They’ve given these songs a life far beyond anything we could have imagined when we made the record when we were 21 years old. We’re incredibly grateful”— Joey Serlin, The Watchmen

“McLaren Furnace Room was made in a pre-internet time when we were young, hungry, and focused solely on making the best record we could. There were no filters or cynicism, just an instinct to follow the music wherever it led. I’m thrilled this award recognizes Canadian albums as complete works that continue to resonate decades later and thanks to our incredibly loyal fans for making this happen.” — Sammy Kohn, The Watchmen

There were 12 albums nominated for Heritage Prize consideration this year:

Annihilator – Alice in Hell
Les Colocs – Les Colocs
Joni Mitchell – Court and Spark
k.d. lang & the Reclines – Absolute Torch and Twang
Mort Garson – Mother Earth’s Plantasia
Muzion – Mentalité moune morne (Ils n’ont pas compris)
Willie Dunn – Willie Dunn (1971)
Richard Desjardins – Tu m’aimes-tu
Rough Trade – Avoid Freud
Sarah Harmer – You Were Here
Various – Kwakiutl: Indian Music of the Pacific Northwest
The Watchmen – McLaren Furnace Room

Heritage Prize balloting was officially opened on August 5 and closed on August 21. Music fans were able to vote once per day to support their favourite albums. This was the second time Heritage Prize winners have ever been revealed during the annual Polaris Concert event.

In an effort to increase the profile of the Heritage Prize program, its winners and nominees, the organization integrated a number of Heritage Prize-themed events as part of its Polaris Festival programming throughout September. These included a Collective Study session exploring past winner k-os’ Joyful Rebellion album, the forthcoming Dreaming With sensory listening event dedicated to past winner Broken Social Scene’s You Forgot It In People, and a special listening session of nominee Mort Garson’s Mother Earth’s Plantasia in Toronto’s Allan Gardens.

This year’s Heritage Prize jury included Félix B. Desfossés, Lise Hosein, Nick Krewen, Antoine-Samuel Mauffette Alavo, Dustin McGladrey, Marie Mello, Alan Ranta, Tabassum Siddiqui, Donald Teplyske, T.O. Whenham and Liz Worth.

Forty-five albums have received Heritage Prize designation since its introduction in 2015. Last year’s winners were Jane Siberry’s 1985 art pop album The Speckless Sky as selected by the Heritage Prize jury, and The Organ’s 2024 alternative noir record Grab That Gun chosen by public vote. Other past winning albums include Leonard Cohen’s Songs Of Leonard Cohen, Skinny Puppy’s Bites, Dream Warriors’ And Now The Legacy Begins, Lhasa de Sela’s La Llorona and Cowboy Junkies’ The Trinity Session.

CBC presents the 2026 Polaris Music Prize. This year’s Concert & Award Ceremony is powered by FACTOR, the Government of Canada, and Canada’s private radio broadcasters. It is supported by SiriusXM Canada, Ontario Creates, the Government of Ontario, the Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund, and the Slaight Family Foundation.