Hi - this entry from the Traditional Ballad Index should give us a good start:

Canaday-I-O, Michigan-I-O, Colley's Run I-O [Laws C17]

DESCRIPTION: A group of lumbermen suffers a winter or cold and poor conditions. When winter ends, they joyfully return to their homes
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1901 Gray's ""The Jolly Lumbermen" version)
KEYWORDS: logger work separation lumbering
FOUND IN: US(MA,MW,NE) Canada(Ont)
REFERENCES (20 citations):
Laws C17a, "Canaday I-O"; C17b, "Michigan I-O"; C17c, "Colley's Run I-O (The Jolly Lumbermen)"
Gray, pp. 37-40, "Canaday-I-O" (1 text, plus sample stanzas from "The Buffalo Skinners," "Canada-I-O (The Wearing of the Blue; Caledonia)," and a railroading song all built on the same pattern); pp. 41-43, "The Jolly Lumbermen" (1 text, from Shoemaker)
Cohen-AFS1, pp. 5-6, "Canada-I-O" (1 text)
Rickaby 8, "Michigan-I-O" (1 text, 1 tune)
Gardner/Chickering 105, "Michigan--I-O" (1 text plus mention of 2 more, 1 tune)
Cohen-AFS2, pp. 408-409, "Michigan-I-O" (1 text)
Fowke-Lumbering #2 , "Michigan-I-O" (1 text, 1 tune)
Linscott, pp. 181-183, "Canaday-I-O" (1 text, 1 tune)
Leach, pp. 773-775, "Canaday I. O. (The Buffalo Skinners)" (2 texts, but only the second goes with this piece; the other belongs with "The Buffalo Skinners" [Laws B10a])
Leach, pp. 171-172, "Canaday I O" (1 text)
Friedman, p. 415, "Canaday-I-O" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fowke/Johnston, pp. 68-69, "Canaday-I-O" (1 text, 1 tune)
Thorp/Fife XV, pp. 195-218 (31-33), "Buffalo Range" (6 texts, 2 tunes, though the "B" text is "Boggy Creek," C and D appear unrelated, and E is "Canada-I-O")
Lomax-FSNA 57, "Canada-I-O" (1 text, 1 tune)
Botkin-NEFolklr, pp. 569-570, "Canada I O" (1 text, 1 tune)
Beck 1, "Michigan-I-O" (2 texts); 2, "Coolie's Run-I-O" (1 text)
Darling-NAS, pp. 179-181, "Canaday I-O" (1 text)
Silber-FSWB, p. 104, "Canada-I-O" (1 text)
DT 377, CANADIO* CANADI2 CANADIO2 CANADIO
ADDITIONAL: MacEdward Leach and Henry Glassie, _A Guide for Collectiors of Oral Traditions and Folk Cultural Material in Pennsylvania_, Pennsylvania historical and Museum Commission, 1973, pp. 36-37, "The Jolly Lumbermen" (1 text)
Roud #640
RECORDINGS:
L. Parker Temple, "Colley's Run I-O" (AFS, 1940s; on LC28)
Lester Wells, "Michigan I-O" (AFS, 1938; on LC56)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Buffalo Skinners" (Laws B10a)
cf. "Boggy Creek or The Hills of Mexico" [Laws B10b]
cf. "Shanty Teamster's Marseillaise"
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Jolly Lumbermen
NOTES: The text known as "Canaday-I-O" is credited by Fowke and by Eckstorm to one Ephraim Braley, who worked in the Canadian woods in 1853. Leach, in his notes to his #109, "Canadee-I-O," states that he based his song on the piece we have indexed as "Canada-I-O (The Wearing of the Blue; Caledonia)"-- though that song too appears to have been quite new at the time. Alan Lomax apparently accepts this interpretation, but also mentions the Scots song "Caledoni-o," which is also mentioned by Leach. Gray also links this song to "Canada-I-O (The Wearing of the Blue; Caledonia)," and argues that that song came first, then this, and that this gave rise to "The Buffalo Skinners."
Probably the whole complex deserves a more thorough examination than it has gotten. - RBW
Last updated in version 3.1
File: LC17

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