William H.A. Willbond MSM, CD
AN EXPLANATION TO MIKIE COMEAU
Doze o’l tyme log drivers on dat Gatineau Hill
Dey spoke a true language dat I recall still
T’was a Hinglish French Irish wid a true patois ring
Dey loved fiddle music and to dance an to sing
Dey lived in wee cabins at the foot of each hill
An dey got sick an died wen e’re dey got ill
Henry Spencer, John Dunlop and o’l Paddy Dane
Playing tunes on de squeezebox on a visit dey came
So you see me fren Mikie, I once lived in Quebec
An if de FLQ dey don’t like it, dey can all go to heck!
Cause I yam a Canayjun from de log driver place
A mixture of cultures an language and race!
©Copyright November 6, 2005 by Billy Willbond
Author’s Note: My friend Michael Comeau was worried about me offending the FLQ because of the bastardization language I use when I write my childhood memory poetry. I explained to him that it was the language of my youth in Western Quebec and it has now all but disappeared with all the new people moving in over the past 60 years – but the sound of it in my head and those early thoughts still bring back fond memories of old men living alone in small cabins in the hills; men who had spent their entire lives in the shanty each winter cutting logs and who had spent each spring after break-up on the log drives bringing the timber down the Gatineau to the Ottawa River.
I can still see them with their whittling sticks making whistles for me, puffing on their shag pipes of pungent tobac, and swigging from their crocks of pocheen high wine (homemade apple jack liquor); their tales of wrestling with bears, packs of wolves following the pork sleighs hauling provisions to the shanty, evading the taxmen by falling trees behind them when they went back to their farms with summer provisions after the logs were delivered and they had their money in their hands; their stories about blowing up log jams and men drowning because they could not swim, are the tales in my mind that are with me still.
Sure dere is many’s de man buried in dat seement dam on de poggan up dere billy sure dere ghosts still haunt de riviere every spring wen de logs flow south……… an let me tell you about big Sullivan who killed a bear wid de axe wen de big black killed his dog – sure he got scratches on his back de size of hay knives and big Sully he drowned up on the Pontiac no dat was McGlocklin. Paddy, he was killed by a broken whippletree hauling freight to Maniwacki – pas vrai hust tee dat was Neally O’Neil dat iron hook hit im square in de forehead an he was mort immee dee ette mant! He usta run de cook’s bateau on de stove raft. Mick O’Reilly and Pierre Tremblay dey got hinta a fight wid a couple of Hinglish lads in Hottawa hafter dey picked up dere winter’s pay – boys dat was a donney brook, indeed… bote lads got put in gaol and came home wid out even un peeass to show fer dere winter’s work. Jimmy ya gotta go to confession fer telling so many lies my fren…………… maa tire tway