Les Draveurs de la Gatineau

I learned this piece from a lady singing in her kitchen. Robert Fillion, who introduced me to the song and commissioned the arrangement, was also invaluable in checking the accuracy of my manuscript. I arranged the song as the kind of waltz the loggers and raftsmen would have danced to as they celebrated the end of the drive, and I imagine the accompaniment having something of the driving, percussive edge of a player piano.

The text illustrates some of the hardships of the raftsman's life, but also the pride taken in meeting those hardships. I think it's a telling detail that the trading post of Monsieur Gouin is on a green lawn, a symbol of human order imposed on the wilderness.

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