Folklore: Lumberjacks, Voyagers and Traders

Subject: Folklore: Lumberjacks, Vouagers and Traders
From: Nick E
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 08:22 PM

On Songs from the Show by Ryans Fancy is a song new to me but is now a favorite, Wild Goose about someone who makes his living in the wilderness, and a good one for that matter, heading back from the wilderness to town. Also The Jam on Jerry Rock about a lumbering disaster involving "Shanty Boys" I have also heard The log Drivers Waltz, written I think by the same guy who wrote Wild Goose.

What songs of the Lumberman, Voyagers, Trappers, Traders etc are you familar with? Who wrote/recorded them ? Lyrics to them etc. There must be a wealth of them out there but I'm hard pressed to name any others than these I already have.

BTW I have now registered for better or worse.
Whack FallThe Day
Nick

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lumberjacks, Vouagers and Traders
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 08:41 PM

Does that mean you got your marriage license?

(Wade Hemsworth wrote Log Driver's Waltz and Wild Goose).

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lumberjacks, Vouagers and Traders
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 09:31 PM

Lumberman-
Earl Clifton Beck, 1948, "Lore of the Lumber Camps," Univ. Michigan, is full of them.

En roulant ma boule and Petit rocher are here somewhere. The voyageurs would sing the songs of Quebec, some of which are found in E. F. Fowke and Richard Johnstone, 1957, "Folk Songs of Quebec" (Chansons de Québec), Waterloo Music Co.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lumberjacks, Vouagers and Traders
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 09:34 PM

Referring above only to the voyageurs from Quebec; many were Metis and, in the west, quite a few Kanakas and Indians.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lumberjacks, Vouagers and Traders
From: JWB
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 10:32 PM

A classic source is "Songs of the Sailor and Lumberman" by William Doerflinger (originally titled "Shantymen and Shanty Boys"). At least that's how I remember the title, and being away from home at the mo I can't check. Like Einstein said, "Why do I need to remember my phone number when I know where to look it up?"

Jerry

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lumberjacks, Vouagers and Traders
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 11:17 PM

There are some great ones. Check out the Badger Drive by ?? Devine of Newfoundland. River in the pines is just lovely..I think Joan Baez sang it.

Interesting about the voyaguers. Hawaians I have just read were considered the best paddlers..there were a number of Iroquois in the business...we think of them being French and Metis but there were others..Orkney islanders...mg

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lumberjacks, Vouagers and Traders
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Jun 07 - 12:50 AM

Orkney Islanders helped to man the trading posts and farms of HB Company; there are records of them accompanying shipments, as mentioned by mg. Hawaiian carpenters built Fort Langley, B. C.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lumberjacks, Voyagers and Traders
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 12 Jun 07 - 04:13 PM

In the DT, search by

@logger
@canada

I'm not finding a keyword for voyageurs...

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lumberjacks, Voyagers and Traders
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 04:36 PM

refresh

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lumberjacks, Voyagers and Traders
From: GUEST,Pikey Joe
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 05:13 PM

Lumberjacks are big and tough and truckers even stronger
But they know when it comes to ridin' that cowboys stay on longer!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lumberjacks, Voyagers and Traders
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 05:34 PM

Ride that log, cowboy!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lumberjacks, Voyagers and Traders
From: Severn
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 05:38 PM

Speaking as a US resident:

Another book is "Joe Scott The Woodsman-Songmaker (Univ. Of Illinois Press 1978) by Edward D. Ives. Here, Maine folklorist Sandy Ives concentrates on one individual along with an overview of lumber camp singing.

Check out the bibliographies of any of the mentioned books, the Canadian collections of Edith Fowke and Hellen Creighton, and try to access the folksong collections in the libraries of any State or Province University library in the US or Canada.

The Folkways/Smithsonian Folkways catalog keeps all its recordings in print available for custom order. Some good ones are:

Ellen Sreckart-"Songs Of A New York Lumberjack" (Folkways 2354)
"Wolf River Songs-Recorded In The Wisconsin Lumber Camps" (Folkways 4001)
....and recordings by the likes of O.J. Abbott, Sandy Ives and Alan Mills and others.

Folk Legacy has albums by the likes of Tom Brandon (recommended!!)
Lawrence Older, Grant Rogers and others. Access their catalog.

Prestige International had an LP called "Ontario Ballads" from the Fowke collections w/ Abbott, Brandon and others.

Some Canadian Catters can probably help out on what Canadian recordings of the Fowke resordings and others are available.


Good luck!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lumberjacks, Voyagers and Traders
From: Severn
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 05:43 PM

George Ward records much Adirondack material.

...or maybe you could just Google "Logger Rhythmic Functions"




....I'll get my parka......

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lumberjacks, Voyagers and Traders
From: Amos
Date: 14 Jun 07 - 12:00 AM

From his home in the North
Comes the young Voyageur
His birch bark canoe
All laden with fur.
Cold is the air;
He does not care.
For there's joy in the heart
Of the young voyageur.


I have no idea where this song comes from; I learned it at me mama's knee.


A

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lumberjacks, Voyagers and Traders
From: GUEST,Sandy Paton
Date: 14 Jun 07 - 01:38 AM

You might want to give a listen to Tom McHenry's "C'est L'Aviron" on the Boarding Party's second Folk-Legacy recording - CD-109 "Fair Winds and a Following Sea." In case you weren't aware of it, he's the Mudcat's "Padre."

There's a fine "Vole, mon Coeur, Vole" (a French-Canadian canoe paddling song) led by Maggie Baye on The Johnson Girls' "On the Rocks" - also on Folk-Legacy (CD-133).

I don't have Tom Brandon's album transferred to CD as yet, but it's coming! All of the others mentioned above are now available as CDs, including Lawrence Older's Adirondack songs and ballads on which he sings "En Roulante" (CD-15).

Sandy (still plugging along!)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lumberjacks, Voyagers and Traders
From: Severn
Date: 14 Jun 07 - 10:48 PM

In the Folkways section of my original post, the singer's name should be Ellen STECKERT.

Sorry 'bout that!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lumberjacks, Voyagers and Traders
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 08:50 AM

As noted above, lumbermen's songs are fairly easy to find, and Doerflinger is a good available source.

True traditional trappers' songs are very rare, if they exist. I personally know of none at all, apart from the voyageur songs to the extent that they dealt with trapping (not much). They were solitaries and I'm guessing they didn't sing while setting traplines if only not to scare away the beaver, marten, etc. they were trying to catch. As far as I know their only social moments, when music might have been a possibility, were the times they wagoned or backpacked or sledged or travoised their hides to market at trailhead forts or in cities like Montreal, Chicago, etc.

Voyageur songs, tales and history are not easy to find. But I was lucky to run across this excellent trade paperback, which I recommend:

Grace Lee Nute, THE VOYAGEUR, reprint ed., Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, 1955, paperback ed 1987. It was first pub in 1931 by D. Appleton & Co. The contents: chapters on

Furs and Fur Traders,
Portrait of the Voyageur
The Voyageur's Canoe
Voyaging
Fort Life
Voyageur Songs
The Voyageur As Soldier
The Voyageur As Settler
The Voyageur As Explorer

The Voyageur songs included, and songs sung by the voyageurs from earlier French tradition, in some cases with music, and English translations added, are as follows. Note that few of them are about voyaging! But that's similar to lumberjacks -- they sang abundantly and only part of their songs were about the lumber camps and lumbering itself.

A La Claire Fontaine
J'ai Trop Grand' Peur des Loups
Voici le Printemps
Frit a L'Huile
La Belle Lisette
Une Perdriole
J'ai Cueilli la Belle Rose
Quand J'etais Chez mon Pere
La Bergere Mouette
En Roulant ma Boule
Nous Etions Trois Capitaines
Ah! Si Mon Moine Voulait Danser
La Belle Francoise
C'est Dans la Ville de Bytown
Parmi Les Voyageurs
Salut a Mon Pays
Le Retour du Mari Soldat
Petit Rocher
Quant un Chretien se Determine a Voyager

I'll save further comments for a second message. Bob

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lumberjacks, Voyagers and Traders
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 09:21 AM

The songs commonly known as sung by voyageurs appear only in scattered places. A few, like Envoyons d' l'avant, Raftsmen, Youpe Youpe sur la riviere, and Un Canadien Errant are included in a little school-style songbook, Edith Fowke's CHANSONS DE QUEBEC, Melody edition, Waterloo, Ontario, Waterloo Music Co Ltd, 1958, if you can find one. It was still being reprinted as late as 1973. All its songs are in French and it's a great anthology of Quebec ditties.

Lilianne Labbe's album UN CANADIEN ERRANT, a good mod-folk collection of French Canadian songs dating from 1980, Philo 41069, includes the great "V'a l'bon vent" and "Youpe! Youpe!"   "V'a l'bon vent" was also recorded back then by Ian and Sylvia, who may have done others, but never more than a few.

The book-CD set Songs of the Voyageurs by Theodore C. Blegen, MHS Press, available from the Minnesota Historical Society, ISBN 0-87351-361-4 (watch out, it's sung by an all-male chorus) lists the following. Note there are few voyageur-specific songs:

À Saint-Malo (1:15)
Envoyons de l'avant (1:59)
C'est le vent frivolant (2:18)
En roulant ma boule (2:14)
Margoton va-t-à l'eau (1:30)
Mon merle (1:57)
Dans les prisons de Nantes (2:01)
Passant par Paris (2:13)
Au cabaret (2:08)
À la claire fontaine (2:30)
C'est l'aviron (2:49)
Alouette (2:18)

But even at best, genuine songs about voyageur life sung by voyageurs appear to be few. Marius Barbeau, Fowke and others who have collected French-Canadian traditional songs never seem to include more than a handful. Lomax collected French songs in Louisiana but not in Quebec as far as I know. Mostly it seems to have been a neglected area. It may help you in further search. Bob

However, I append this quote about Franco-Canadian folk music from http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=U1ARTU0001243

QUOTE
Foreign visitors who heard the singing of the voyageurs - the canoeists, the coureurs de bois, the fur traders of the north - were the first to draw attention to it. The voyageurs sang to set the rhythm of their paddles and to give themselves courage. Their songs excited the admiration of 18th- and 19th-century travellers.

The Irish poet Thomas Moore, who sailed from Kingston to Montreal in August 1804, marvelled at the sight of these men rowing together and singing in chorus against the magnificent panorama of the St Lawrence River. So enthralled was he that he memorized several of their songs in order to teach them to his sister. It was during this journey that he composed his 'Canadian Boat Song'. In 1817 John Bradbury mentioned that in the course of his journey he had heard canoeists sing 'Trois Beaux Canards' (Travels in the Interior of America, in the Year 1809, 1810 and 1811, London 1817; 2nd edn 1819, pp 20-1). During Captain John Franklin's expedition to the Arctic Lieut George Back collected voyageur songs and sent them to Edward Knight Jr in March 1823. Knight provided piano accompaniment for the melodies, and George Soane and J.B. Planche wrote English texts which they thought more representative than the original lyrics; the results were published in London with the title Canadian Airs (1823). John Mactaggart discovered a 12-verse version of the 'Fille au cresson' (Three Years in Canada, London 1829, vol 2, pp 255-6). Before 1830 Edward Ermatinger, an English emigrant of Swiss and Italian descent, collected the melodies and complete texts of 11 canoeists' songs. The Royal Ontario Museum (Toronto) owns a manuscript, signed by Edward M. Hopkins (1861), containing nine songs which appear to have been copied from Ermatinger. The New York weekly The Albion, 19 Nov 1836, published an unattributed version of 'À la claire fontaine' under the title 'Original Canadian Boat Song'; the words were in French and the music included a piano accompaniment.

Many other people have noted down songs in their travel diaries, among them Mrs Jameson (Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada, London 1838, vol 3, pp 111-13), James H. Lanman ('The American fur trade,' Merchant's Magazine and Commercial Review, New York September 1840, p 189), R.M. Ballantyne (Hudson's Bay, Edinburgh 1848), John Jeremiah Bigsby (The Shoe and Canoe..., London 1850, vol 2, pp 81, 321-2), and Johann Georg Kohl (Kitchi-Gami, London 1860). Kohl recounts the legend of Cadieux ('Petit Rocher de la haute montagne') and quotes several lines from the lament. Among other foreigners who observed this folkloric survival in Quebec were several from France, including Alexis de Tocqueville, Alphonse de Puisbusque, Xavier Marmier, who published Chant populaires du Nord... (Paris 1842), and Jean-Jacques Ampère.

From the numerous testimonies of foreign travellers, Conrad Laforte has compiled the 'Répertoire authentique des chansons d'aviron de nos anciens canotiers (voyageurs, engagés, coureurs de bois),' (Présentation à la Société royale du Canada, 1982-3). These rugged workers adapted medieval dance songs, mostly recounting feminine misadventures, to the rhythm of their paddles. These same voyageurs, engaged in fur trading, and the later foresters (loggers, raftsmen) sang of the hardships of their labours. A collection of these songs was published in 1982 by Madeleine Béland and Lorraine Carrier-Aubin (Chansons de voyageurs, coureurs de bois et forestiers).
UNQUOTE

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lumberjacks, Voyagers and Traders
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 09:32 AM

(excuse blank message above -- case of nervous fingers)

I found this phrase while googling. It fascinated me so, I copy it here. Haven't followed it up. -- Bob

"At Ottawa, the National Museum of Canada was said to have some 5000 voyageur songs, many of them recently made into recordings."

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lumberjacks, Voyagers and Traders
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 09:42 AM

The lead in my previous message is pretty tenuous. Here is the Lib/Cong's list of references to Canadian folklore sources, but be warned,The Canadian Centre for Folklore Studies of what is now called The Canadian Museum of Civilizations has a lot of links whose pages haven't been set up yet.

Someone with more time than I may be able to penetrate this maze and find the oodles of voyageur songs supposedly hidden within!

Bob

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lumberjacks, Voyagers and Traders
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 09:47 AM

Sorry to have omitted the link to Canadian folklore sources. Here 'tis:

http://www.loc.gov/folklife/source/canada.html

These should also include much material on English-language stuff like lumberjack songs as well as the French voyageur songs.

You might also check sources for songs of the Great Lakes region.

And don't miss the French Canadian dialect songs, nominally in English, like "On Meesh-e-gan," which Lomax reprints.

Bob

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lumberjacks, Voyagers and Traders
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 11:47 AM

I have an old volume by Alan Lomax which contains many such songs. I believe the title is "A Treasury of American Folk Songs," or some such, circa 1960 or earlier. Since I am at my office, I can't be certain. It categorizes songs according to their type and origins.