New category and profile for Raftsmen, Ottawa River-St Lawrence timber transport

Question

The 1800s – the era of the timber trade in Ontario and Quebec. Lumber camps supplied logs to sawmills or to forwarding companies. Workers built rafts of the felled timber and raftsmen were hired to take them down the Ottawa and St. Lawrence Rivers to the Port of Quebec, where they were disassembled and the timber shipped to England, the returning ships carrying immigrants to Canada. The raftsmen's work helped shape Canada and then faded into history.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Raftsmen_-_Ottawa_Valley#Les_Raftmens

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Raftsmen

Comments

Hmmm..a raftsman is someone who works on a raft, it isn't specific to the Ottawa timber trade or even the lumber industry in general.

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We always just called them log drivers.

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lol, the French Canadians altered the word driver to draveur.  So the term would actually be driver in English, not raftsmen.

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Right. I'm just not convinced that this is the best name for a category about a particular occupation, in a particular industry, in a particular place. This is a very broad category for a very narrow group of people.

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Modified the raftsmen category and profile.

Moving timber in rafts was different from log driving, where logs were not squared.  It was a well known occupation in the Ottawa Valley down into the St Lawrence in the 1800s. 

Léon A. Robidoux. (2008) The Raftsmen of the Ottawa and St Lawrence Rivers. Shoreline Press, Montreal. pp198. ISBN:978-1-896754-38-3. Shoreline page

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Jacques Labrecque - "Les Raftsmen" (1949)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4u7nt1gUX0

'Les Raftsmen'

'Les Raftsmen'. Canadian song originating in the Ottawa Valley in the second half of the 19th century. It is attributed to a raftsman or logger; according to the song, 'Across Bytown [Ottawa] they went today. They've packed their grub, they cannot stay.' E.-Z. Massicotte was the first to record this song, which sung in both French and English and is sometimes called 'Bing on the Ring,' after the refrain. 'The Raftsmen' preserves the memory of a period when the hard life of the backwoods was mixed with a certain joie de vivre. The NFB has made filmstrips based on this song. It was recorded in the mid-1920s as 'Les Raft-Man' by Charles Marchand (Starr 15245 and Col 4047F) and later was included on two LPs by Jacques Labrecque (Lon MLP-10014; RCI/RCA CS-100-7) and others by Alan Mills (Folk FP-29) and the Chorale de l'Université St-Joseph (Col FL-234). The song has been published in Canada's Story in Song, edited by Fowke, Mills, and Blume (Toronto 1965). An arrangement by Ruth Watson Henderson for baritone, choir, and piano was published by Thompson in 1975.

Answer 1

I cycle along the Ottawa River. It's interesting when cut logs to a specific length end up bobbing at the rivers edge. Always makes me think of the men who probably cut that log. It also makes me realize how much logging happened in our area that there are still logs popping up from the depths.

Mags

Answer 2

Well, the French term for them is draveurs, and there is a fair bit of cultural memory about them here.  http://www.metiersforetbois.af2r.org/metiers-dautrefois/draveur  is a nice little site that describes what they did, and mentions that the practice existed in France as far back as 11th century.  Sorry, you need to read French on this one.

The practice was officially banned in 1995 for environmental reasons, some of the resinous trees containing mercury in their bark.

Comments

Nice site, thanks, I'll add the link. 

Raftsmen is used in French, too.  Log driving was different. There was a pub for a long time in Hull, Québec called <<Les Raftsmen>>, and there's a folk song in French about them.

Jacques Labrecque - "Les Raftsmen" (1949)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4u7nt1gUX0

From your link found this:

http://www.metiersforetbois.af2r.org/metiers-dautrefois/cageux

<<Le cageux (raftman) transportait les billots de bois à l’aide des trains de bois sur les grandes rivières et sur le fleuve Saint-Laurent.>>

Answer 3

I see your 'Les Raftsmen', and raise you 'The Log Driver's Waltz'.

The Log Driver's Waltz, YouTube

History of The Log Driver's Waltz, The Toronto Guardian

Does anyone else feel like this got played endlessly in Elementary School?? LOL, I don't think I remember any of the other Vignettes.

Comments

Sweet

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Lol, I'm too old to have heard this in elementary school, but recognized the voices of the McGarrigle sisters in there right away.  Nice touch.  

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Loved the McGarrigle sisters, but boy did my kids hate them, particularly when played on car trips!

"The Black Fly Song" You Tube is the one I remember best, also written by Wade Hemsworth.

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Saw the McGarrigles sisters once, I was living in Vancouver then, also saw their daughters at the same show.