MMario posted a version above that is almost exactly the same as the text I found in E.C. Beck's Lore of the Lumber Camps (1948). Beck says, "W.K. Kelsey has suggested that he and George Bernard Shaw (!) alternated lines in composing it in 1896, when Joe Bedore told Shaw about the wreck of a wood scow on Lake St Clair."
Beck isn't sure of the location, but seems to think Lake St. Clair is likely. Compared to the other Great Lakes, St. Clair isn't particularly "great," but I feel bound to repeat that there is a tradition in Detroit that insists that there are six Great Lakes, St. Clair being one of them.
Here's a pertinent quote from Beck:

French-Canadian acquaintances introduced to me by Bill DuChaine of Escanaba tell me that "ten acres" is wrong, and that "wan arpent" in French Canadian is one side of the square arpent and should not be translated "acre."

Now you know.
-Joe Offer-





George Bernard Shaw?????

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The last version cited by the Traditional Ballad Index is in Fowke/Johnston's Folk Songs of Canada. Anybody have that one?