Good Food * Good Listening * Good Company

in Northern Bruce Peninsula

TRIBUTE TO THE VOYAGEURS

VOYAGEUR STEW

by Paul Conway©

Sung to the tune of “The soldiers of our Queen” from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience.

Voyageurs

The men of the old brigade,

So famed in song and story,

Of little are we afraid;

(Pray stop us if we bore ye!)

We cross the wilds unknown;

We’re strong of arm and shoulder;

Though timid when alone,

In company we're bolder.

Animateur

If you want a receipt for that popular mystery

Known to the world as a voyageur,

Voyageurs

Yes. yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!

Animateur

Take all of the famous explorers of history,

Mix into rubbaboo petits fours!

Voyageurs

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!

Animateur

First, take Captain Jacques Cartier defying the river's flow,

Quite undeterred by the fears of his crew;

He founded a forum for Richard and Beliveau,

Names that may be unfamiliar to you.

Samuel de Champlain unslinging his harqebus,

Teaching the Iroquois gunpowder's charm;

Étienne Brulé in the land of the mighty moose,

Leaving his relatives back on the farm;

Jean Nicolet bound for Michilimackinaw;

Sieur de La Salle floating downstream to Mardi Gras;

Dallier and Gallinée; Marquette and Jolliet;

Daniel Du Llut and some others we should forget;

Clan La Vérendrye, and La Jémeraye;

Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Groseillier!

Voyageurs

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!

Animateur

Carve off a slice of each one of these gentlemen,

Chop 'em and mix 'em as if they were pemmican,

Set 'em to simmer and give 'em a stir,

And the sot in the pot is a bold voyageur!

Voyageurs

A voyageur! A voyageur!

Animateur

Then add poor Henry Hudson set drifting by mutineers,

Out on the Bay that adorned by his name's.

(His crew escaped hanging by handing out boutonniers

One afternoon in the court of King James.)

Bold Henry Kelsey going forth to the prairieland,

Coaxing the Blackfoot to come to the Mall;

Anthony Henday who thought he'd found fairyland

Viewing the Rockies one day in the Fall;

Samuel Hearne, guided north by Matonabbee;

Bad Peter Pond, with whom I would not want to be;

Youthful Mackenzie, the North’s Alexander;

D. Thompson, S. Fraser, MacLeod; oh, yes, and Sir

John Franklin, whose loss we must never forget;

And all the others we haven’t named yet.

Voyageurs

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!

Animateur

Carve off a slice of each one of these gentlemen,

Chop 'em and mix 'em as if they were pemmican,

Set 'em to simmer and give 'em a stir,

And the sot in the pot is a bold voyageur!

Voyageurs

A voyageur! A voyageur!

WHAT MEN ARE THESE!

[from David Lavender, Winner Take All: The Trans-Canada Canoe Trail]

Voyageurs averaged only a few inches more than five feet in height, bandy-legged but powerful through their chests and shoulders. Swarthy and scarred by their arduous tade, most were illiterate, boastful, gay-spirited, and, when left to themselves, undependable. They liked gay sashes, neckerchiefs, and red-stocking caps with long tassels, adornments they generally kept folded and clean until they wanted to make a dashing entrance into some trailside fort. Unlike the independent coureurs du bois, they were averse to fighting Indians and venturing into unknown situations. But under supervision and in the face of accustomed hardships—running dangerous rapids, poling against swift currents, carrying burdens through knee-deep mud, enduring fogs and wind and ravenous insects—they were toilers without peers in pioneering history.

THE VOYAGEUR

by Philip Child

A voyager of lakes and windblown spruce

He breaks the misty morning, spans the noon

And dreams the midnight chuckling of the loon,

The day the night he holds in midway truce

The morning ashes are the evening gleam

His journey’s dawn and journey’s night are one.

Life is his paddle flashing in the sun

And time its swirl that eddies down the stream

That eddies down the stream and is no more;

The swirl has vanished like the fire’s heat,

Cold, cold the fire, still the paddle beat

As still as needles on the forest floor;

Strong was the paddle thrust and quick as birth

But deep and dark and silent lies the earth.

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