Lynne Lavery
FORT-COULONGE – There was a full house at the Pontiac Conference Centre on Friday, January 30, for the annual Lumberjack dinner. In its 11th year, the event is a regular winter highlight, celebrating Pontiac history and culture with a focus on the logging industry and the famous log drives. With a traditional logging camp dinner (ham, beans, chicken, meatloaf, potatoes, roasted vegetables and more), lots of great music from Gail Gavan, Louis Shryer and friends, stories and memories, the evening was a huge success. A silent auction fundraiser raised a record $4,132 for Centreaide which supports local organizations including Bouffe Pontiac, Jardin Educatif, Maisons des jeunes, Maison de la famille, Le Patro and more.
History re-lived
Even though the last log drive was in 1982 there were many in the audience who participated in the Pontiac’s heyday of forestry work. A slide show painted the scene of that history: loggers falling trees in the dead of winter; horses pulling wagons stacked high with logs, making their way through the snow; the shanties where the men would stay; and, of course, images of the “drive” where the logs were pushed into the rivers to take them to the closest mill or on towards the Ottawa River. Two men were introduced early in the evening by Jane Toller, the organizer of the evening: Denis Soucie and Ronald Henri. Ronald apparently had the reputation for being able to “dance across the logs in his cork boots”. Another member of the audience, Valmore (Valley) Francoeur, now 86 years old, started on the drive when he was 16 years old. He worked in the bush for 50 years and, with a twinkle in his eye, said his favourite memory was “working with the horses.”
Two other men shared their memories. Eighty-eight year old Ian Hamilton worked in a camp near Bryson, between 1950 and 1952. He recalled they was paid 50 cents an hour and worked 6 hours a day, 7 days a week, with free room and board. Because he could read and write he quickly became a clerk; no one else in the camp had that “higher education.” He also recalled the “washtubs of food, laid out on picnic tables” and that no one spoke during meals; they had to dig in and get back to work!
Clayton Denault, who also started working when he was 16, then shared his memories of getting the logs out of the camps; he and his family worked to get the logs onto the river from Timiskaming down to Hawkesbury. A slideshow showed the horses and wagons they started with, then the transition to trucks while he explained how those trucks eventually replaced the log drives.
And, then there was the music
Gail Gavan started the evening’s entertainment with some classic Ottawa Valley songs including the Chapeau Boys and a poem about Ceasar Paul, a local legend who guided around Jim’s Lake for over 95 years and lived to be 112! She was followed by 4 time Canadian Grand Masters Fiddle Champion, Louis Shryer and his partners Timi Turmel on accordion and Erin Leahy on keyboard. They played two sets of jigs, reels and original music, which garnered loud audience applause. A highlight were two young nieces of Erin’s, Hannah Donnohue and Aliyah Leahy, who took to the stage to perform several rousing step-dancing routines.
Another “surprise” entertainer was Jean-Marc Lalonde, who, with his colourful mini accordion and his entertaining “franglaise”, had the audience laughing and singing along with his traditional French songs, accompanied by Erin and Louis’ improvisations on fiddle and keyboard.
Gail returned for another set, with Suzie Moffat and Sherryl Fitzpatrick; one favourite was the classic Log Drivers Waltz, which brought some older couples onto the dance floor. The music continued until after 10 pm.
The heyday of Pontiac’s forestry industry may be behind us now, but the memory of those days lives on in many people’s lives. With her personal history linking her to the region and the logging industry, at the end of the evening, Jane Toller stated, “This is my favourite evening of the year! This event brings forestry back to the forefront, uniting Quebec and Ontario with French and English and the past with the present.”
Photo: The evening’s muscians were (l-r): Timi Turmel; Sherryl Fitzpatrick, Suzie Moffat, Gail Gavan, Louis Shryer, Erin Leahy, with host Jane Toller. (LL) Photo: Lynne Lavery
