Alberta acts take home hardware at Junos opening night

Two nominees from Alberta are celebrating after winning at the Junos opening night awards on Saturday.

There were 40 awards handed out at the Edmonton Convention Centre ahead of the broadcast on Monday.

A number of Albertans were up for awards, with The Bearhead Sisters winning Traditional Indigenous Artist of Group of the Year and Tenille Townes winning for Country Album of the Year.

The Bearhead Sisters opened up Saturday's ceremony with a performance, which they said was one of their biggest.

"It's been very exciting for our first time as nominees and actually winning… the week's been just crazy," said Allie Bearhead. "A good crazy."

"For many years, us as Indigenous women, we faced a lot of barriers and stuff that tried to knock us down," added Carly Bearhead. "For an Indigenous sister trio to be able to create an album, submit it to the Junos, be selected and win… that's an honour.

"It's not every day you get to see that, I feel so much power and it's a blessing to be able to represent ourselves the best way we know how, for our community, for our people."

This is the second Juno win for Townes and she is also excited to be performing in Monday's broadcast, hosted by Simu Liu.

"It's been amazing. I'm so happy to be home in Alberta, it's so surreal to get to celebrate the Junos here and I'm so excited for the show," said Townes. "We had rehearsal earlier and I'm freaking out, I can't wait."

She remembers being in the audience the last time the Junos came to Edmonton in 2004.

"I sat like the second row up from the top, in the nosebleeds, and was just dreaming about how cool it might be to get to be a part of the show someday," said Townes.

"So it's very surreal to be here this weekend."

The 2023 Junos begins at 6 p.m. on Monday.