THE BADGER DRIVE

Listen:
“The Badger Drive”
Lomond Sound

From the album Lomond Sound Live, 2012, orderable from Soundbone.

Person list

Words:

  • John V. Devine

Tune:

  • Traditional

Date:

  • lyrics written in 1912

Locations associated with this song:

Background Info:

The Badger Drive, Newfoundland's best known song about its lumber woods industry was composed in 1912 by John V. Devine, a native of King's Cove, Bonavista Bay. Local and family tradition hold that Devine composed it in a Grand Falls boarding house after having been fired from his job as scaler for the Anglo Newfoundland Development Company (A.N.D.). He sang the song at a St. Patrick's Day concert at which A.N.D. business manager Hugh Wilding Cole, the man who'd fired him, was present along with other management representatives including his immediate superior William Dorrity and Ronald Kelly, assistant superintendent on the Exploits River. The names in verse three are of the rivers and streams on which the drive was carried out. Devine's performance won him his job back.
Dr. Neil V. Rosenberg, Catch Ahold this One...Songs of Newfoundland & Labrador –Volume 1
© Vinland Music. Reproduced with permission

Lyrics:

There is one class of men in this country, That never is mentioned in song.
And now, since their trade is advancing, They'll come out on top before long.
They say that our sailors have danger And likewise our warriors bold
But there's none know the life of a driver, What he suffers with hardship and cold;

With their pike-poles and peavies and bateaus and all,
And their sure to drive out in the spring, that's the time
With the caulks on their boots as they get on the logs,
And it's hard to get over their time.

Billey Dorothey he is the manager, and he's a good man at the trade;
And when he's around seeking drivers, he's like a train going down grade,
But still he is a man that's kind-hearted, on his word you can always depend,
And there's never a man that works with him but likes to go with him again.

I tell you today home in London, The Times it is read by each man,
But little they think of the fellows that drove the wood on Mary Ann,
For paper is made out of pulpwood and many things more you may know,
And long may our men live to drive it upon Paymeoch and Tomjoe.

The drive it is just below Badger, and everything is working grand;
With a jolly good crew of picked drivers and Ronald Kelly in command,
For Ronald is boss on the river, and I tell you he's a man that's alive,
He drove the wood off Victoria, now he's out on the main river drive.

So now to conclude and to finish, I hope that ye all will agree
In wishing success to all Badger and the A. N. D. Company,
And long may they live for to flourish, and continue to chop, drive and roll,
And long may the business be managed By Mr. Dorothey and Mr. Cole.

from Old-Time Songs and Poetry of Newfoundland, 2nd ed.

See lyrics on a page by themselves