2016 reflections, 30 years of the Hip and more arts stories you might have missed

Here at CBC Arts, you won't just find our original content — we also bring you the best art posts from across the entire CBC network.

These are the week's can't-miss stories:

The Strombo Show presents Hip 30 (CBC Music)

Could there be a better way to start 2017? George Stroumboulopoulos and friends will be kicking off the year in style with a four-hour tribute to the Tragically Hip airing January 1st on CBC Radio 2. An impressive lineup of the band's colleagues and fans — artists like Barenaked Ladies, Arkells, Death From Above 1979 and Sam Roberts — will stop by the House of Strombo to cover classic Hip songs and talk about their music's impact. Strombo himself said it best: "There has never been a show like this — Canada's best covering Canada's band. This is our love letter."

• 16 from '16: Amanda's picks for the year's best moments in culture, from Moonlight to Lemonade
• This artist can make an entire galaxy of Star Wars characters using nothing but crayons
• These aren't just skateboards — they're an artistic confrontation with colonialism

The best books of 2016 (CBC Books)

It's nearly the holidays, which means it's almost time to settle in with a nice cup of tea, curl up with your favourite blanket — and immediately start panicking trying to decide what to read during your precious few vacation days. Thankfully, the good folks at CBC Books are here to help. In a year of amazing titles, they've managed to narrow things down to the best of the best — so you can spend less time panicking and more time reading.

New Kenojuak Cultural Centre gets $100K donation in Annie Pootoogook's memory (CBC North)

A new cultural centre in Cape Dorset, Nunavut is one step closer to becoming a reality thanks to a donation in memory of the late Annie Pootoogook. The Sobey Art Foundation, who honoured the beloved Inuit artist with the Sobey Art Award in 2006, has given $100,000 to help build the Kenojuak Cultural Centre and Print Shop as a tribute to the "enduring impression" Pootoogook left on the Sobey family. "She was a beautiful person on the inside and the outside and touched people, I'm sure, everywhere she went," said the foundation's secretary Bernard Doucet.

• Love in the time of Brexit: An award-winning playwright looks back on his 2016
• Finding strength in vulnerability: How these artists are celebrating black men through portraits
• Meet the photographer who will travel to the ends of the earth — or outer space — for his art

2016: in memoriam (CBC Music)

"It was a very bad year."

This is how CBC Music summed up their eulogy to the musical legends who were taken from us in 2016. It was a year that saw an unprecedented amount of loss in that category, and scrolling through the timeline of deaths only makes the magnitude of that loss all the more staggering. Throw on your favourite record from David Bowie or Leonard Cohen, Prince or Sharon Jones, and raise a glass to all they blessed us with during their time on earth.

Gregory Scofield on poetry as testimony (The Next Chapter)

For Gregory Scofield, poetry is much more than just words. The Indigenous writer spoke with Shelagh Rogers about his work and advocacy, including a moving reading of his poem "She is spitting a mouthful of stars," a powerful remembrance of missing and murdered Indigenous women from his new collection Witness, I Am:

She is spitting a mouthful of stars
She is laughing more than the men who beat her
She is ten horses breaking open the day
She is new to her bones
She is holy in the dust.

• Dear Mr. Prime Minister: This poet has something to say to you about Indigenous rights
• The CBC Arts gift guide for art lovers: 2016 edition
• Meet the band from Japan trying to make it big on Toronto's streets​

Bookmark the CBC Arts homepage and follow us on Facebook and Twitter for all the arts stories you need from across the country!