Boys at Ninety-Five, The

DESCRIPTION: Mike takes the Bonavista Branch to Deer Lake and is sent to lumbercamp 95 "with not a decent tree." The skipper, foreman, and cook are named with comments on drink and dawn-to-dark hard work
AUTHOR: Mike Brennan
EARLIEST DATE: 1952 (Peacock)
KEYWORDS: lumbering drink moniker cook logger
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Peacock, pp. 746-747, "The Boys at Ninety-Five" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #9802
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Wabash Cannonball" (tune)
cf. "The Lumber Camp Song" (theme)
NOTES [134 words]: The melody shown by Peacock is very close to "The Wabash Cannonball." He notes that the "writer was away during my visit, so I had no opportunity to get the 'correct' tune." He collected the song at Stock Cove, near Bonavista.
The Bonavista Branch of the narrow gauge Newfoundland Railway started at Bonavista on the northeast coast. Deer Lake is about 350 miles west by Trans-Canada 1 and other roads that pretty much follow the route of the railway. The Bonavista Branch ran from 1913 to 1989 according to the Blanford site. - BS
The failure to collect a tune is particularly sad given the likelihood that this is derived from some other logging song, e.g. "We Work for Hay and Company" (which also uses "The Wabash Cannonball"). For more on the Bonavista line, see the notes to "The Bonavist Line." - RBW
Last updated in version 5.0
File: Pea746

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