Sarah Harmer is a Canadian singer-songwriter/activist.
In 1998, Harmer recorded a set of pop standards as a Christmas gift for her father. After hearing it, her friends and family convinced her to release it as an album, and in 1999 she released it independently as Songs for Clem. Harmer quickly began working on another album, and in 2000, she released You Were Here.
A poppier, more laid-back effort than her work with Weeping Tile, You Were Here became Harmer's mainstream breakthrough, spawning the hits "Basement Apartment" and "Don't Get Your Back Up". The album also appeared on many critics' year-end lists, including TIME magazine, which called it the year's best debut album. It was eventually certified platinum for sales of 100,000 copies in Canada. Almost half of the album (including both of its major hits) consisted of songs she had previously recorded with Weeping Tile or the Saddletramps.
In 2004, she released All of Our Names. The album included the singles "Almost", which made the top 20 on Canadian pop charts, and "Pendulums".
Harmer has also appeared as a guest vocalist on albums by other Canadian artists, including Rheostatics, Bruce Cockburn, Skydiggers and The Weakerthans.
In 2005, Harmer co-founded PERL (Protecting Escarpment Rural Land), an organization which campaigned to protect the Niagara Escarpment from a proposed gravel development which would see parts of the wilderness on the Escarpment destroyed. To support the organization, she and her acoustic band embarked on a tour of the Escarpment, hiking the Bruce Trail along the Escarpment and performing at theatres and community halls in towns along the way.
Her fourth album, I'm A Mountain, was released in Canada on November 8, 2005 and in the United States in February 2006. It was nominated for the inaugural Polaris Music Prize, a critic's selected $20,000 cash prize for the Canadian album of the year. Sarah has performed and canvassed in support of the NDP and Marilyn Churley, her friend in the fight for the protection of the Niagara Escarpment.
