Hi Jim,

I hope you don't mind but I sang The Hills of Margaree at the session in Judique on Sunday. I can't do it the justice that you do but it is a great song! Leonel was there and I passed your message along.

My father was from Whale Cove and I also wrote a song about the Margaree area. The first time that I planned to sing it in public was to be at the Judique guitar session. When I arrived there I was told that John Morris Rankin had been killed that morning at the very spot that the song was about. I couldn't bring myself to sing it until months later.

MY MARGAREE

Away back in the early eighteen hundreds
My ancestors, they sailed across the sea
Leaving Scotland far behind they found a new home
In whale cove down by the shores of Margaree

When the nor'-west wind is howling of the big ice
And the swirling snow makes it so hard to see
I'll be warm and happy sitting in the kitchen
By the wood stove in my home in Margaree

In springtime I look out to Margaree Island
And I can see my father's boat out on the
Where he works so hard just trying to make a living
Pulling fish out of the waters of Margaree

In summertime, I love to go out swimming
Where whale cove cape protects us in it's lee
From whitecaps that are rolling toward the shoreline
To break along the cliffs of Margaree

When the autumn days are growing ever shorter
And a cooler breeze is blowing of the sea
The hills they are ablaze with colored splendor
It's like heaven 'round my home in Margaree

(c) 1999
A.McLean
a.mclean@ns.sympatico.ca