BACK ROADS BILL: Origins of a Northern Ontario anthem

Well, the blackflies are always out first and there’s a back roads song which is kind of like the provincial anthem of northern Ontario, especially at this time of the year.

If you don’t know the lyrics of The Blackfly Song first have a listen to this National Film Board animated vignette.

This will get you started. “…And the black fly, the little black fly

Always the black fly, no matter where you goI’ll die with the black fly a-pickin’ my bones

In north On-tar-i-o-i-o, in north On-tar-i-o…”

Some of the poignant lyrics will be explained along the way.

Water diversion

“…They want to build a power dam and we must find a way For to make the little ab flow around the other way…”

The Little Abitibi River is one of many that flows north from the height of land to James Bay.

It runs about 120 kilometres (75 mi) and there is a non-operating Little Abitibi Provincial Park along the way.

The park follows the Little Abitibi River from the outlet at Harris Lake for approximately 70 km to a diversion dam (about 300 m spanning the river), constructed in 1962-63 by Ontario Hydro (now OPG) to divert water into New Post Creek. It then follows a 4 km engineered diversion channel to New Post Creek and then 16 km of New Post Creek to the confluence at the Abitibi River. This water was needed to increase the flow of another power dam at Otter Rapids, another dam downstream of Abitibi Canyon. There was no Indigenous-First Nation consultation.

Preliminary surveys of the Otter Rapids site were conducted in 1945. In 1951 additional site information was gathered with studies and estimates refined. Approval under the Navigable Waters Protection Act was received in October 1958 and the first generating unit came online on September 26, 1962. The Ontario Northland Railway on its way to Moosonee runs past this facility.

Fast forward to contemporary times, the water was diverted again.

Ontario Power Generation and Coral Rapids Power Corporation (a company wholly owned by Taykwa Tagamou First Nation) became equity partners in the Peter Sutherland Sr. Generating Station.

It is named after a respected community elder, the 28 MW hydroelectric power station is located at the confluence of the Abitibi River and New Post Creek within the Taykwa Tagamou Nation’s traditional territory. A portion of the required flow comes from a New Post creek diversion, which opened Aug. 24, 2017.

When you look at the map there’s some orientation. First the now almost ghost town of Abitibi Canyon, last week’s story offering. Also, see the headwaters of both the Little Abitibi and the Abitibi Rivers. Then the Little Abitibi River-New Post Creek water control diversion dam. You will see the magnificent New Post Falls and the new Peter Sutherland Sr. hydro dam. Further north the Coral Rapids OPG power dam and further still the confluence of the Little Abitibi and the Abitibi Rivers. Note that north of the Little Abitibi River diversion dam how the northward-bound water flow has been restricted.

There are six hydro dams along the length of the Abitibi River, the first near Iroquois Falls.

The songwriter

He is not so well known as Wade Hemsworth.

“…The unemployment office said they’d send me through

To the little Abitibi with the survey crew…”

We know he was on a survey crew in the late 1940s that was tasked with changing the flow of the Little Abitibi River, completely reversing the flow north in another direction to join the Abitibi River.

By his own volition, Lorne Brown is a “singer of old songs. and teller of old tales.” For twelve years he was the editor of Appleseed Quarterly, the Canadian Journal of Storytelling. He also used to edit The Canadian Folk Music Bulletin.

He filled in a few blanks, “Wade Hemsworth deserves the recognition.”

“I’m really not sure how many people are aware of Wade Hemsworth. “Not many people ever did get to hear him perform. He was a person who wrote maybe 20 songs, all told, in his lifetime. He never considered that that was his job or his business or anything like that.”

Hemsworth moved to Montreal in the early 1950s and began working for CNR by day and writing songs like The Wild Goose, The Blackfly Song and Foolish You in the evenings. He recorded a few of them on a folk record he made for Folkways Records in 1955.

Wade Hemsworth's great-nephew is also called Wade Hemsworth. Lorne Brown said, “The bearer of this famous name gave an evocative and fitting eulogy at his great-uncle's funeral in January of 2002, Wade Hemsworth was 95. He has kindly allowed me permission to reprint it for our readers (Canadian Folk Music Bulletin.)”

“He was the bearded man busting through the brush of the wild north with a surveyor's transit over his shoulder, his imagination filling with thoughts both joyful and sombre, developing the sense of what he would later describe as the "grand contrariety."

“Wade's life experiences were fascinating, but it was his insight, talent and passion - the way he lived those experiences - that set him apart. It was not his accomplishments, nor his stories from some of our country's most romantic times and places that attracted and held attention on Wade throughout his life. It was his love for nature, for language and music.”

And from one of Canada’s most famous folk song artists. Within an excerpt from Bruce Cockburn’s 2014 memoirs ‘Rumours of My Glory’ (Harper Collins). Cockburn, who spent his youth in Ottawa describes when he became interested in folk music.

“I didn’t connect folk music to the guitar until I was 15, during my last summer at Camp Ahmek, a venerable institution on the shores of Canoe Lake in Algonquin Provincial Park, about 100 miles from Ottawa. That year I worked in the kitchen, where I met a kid my age who practiced rudimentary fingerpicking. I had not seen anyone play that way. He played a song called Black Fly.” The effect was immediate and long-lasting.

Blackflies

“…It was black fly, black fly everywhere

A-crawlin’ in your whiskers, a-crawlin’ in your hair…”

A past Back Roads Bill Feb 16, 2022 story, highlighted blackflies and mosquitoes and a classic fly repellent.

“…One reason is the story of a bug repellent that has its fourth generation roots in Northern Ontario at the turn of the last century, with an original slogan: Guaranteed to Scatter Black Flies and Mosquitoes and Relieve the Irritation caused by Fly Bites, with a reputation of: “Any self-respecting person who has lived in the north knows, that only McKirdy's Repalfly really works!...”

And, “…A real black fly expert was found. Doug Currie’s Ph.D. dissertation, ‘Morphology and Systematics of Primitive Simuliidae,’ examined the early evolutionary relationships of black flies — a notorious pest of birds and mammals.

“…"Black flies are far more annoying in their attacks as they swarm about one’s head and bombard one’s mouth, nose, eyes and ears. And their bites — although initially painless — weep for hours afterwards and remain itchy for days (or even weeks). On that basis, I suppose one could argue that black flies are more annoying than mosquitoes in June in Northern Ontario…”

Classic fly repellent

“…With the little Abitibi and the survey crew ’twas a wonderful experience and this I know I’ll never go again to north Ontar-i-o…”

John Pineau has worked and lived in northern Ontario, and has been singing the blackfly song for more than 50 years. As a folk singer the blackfly song was the first song he learned as a budding guitar player. He thinks it is a classic Canadian campfire song. The Executive Director of the Ontario Woodlot Association explained. “I was 11 it was the first song I learned to play because of my grandfather, and his dislike of blackflies when he gardened.

“Like the Log Drivers Waltz, (another Hemsworth song) it is true and classic Canadian folk music, and they are both now campfire standards. His songs sound like they were written a few hundred years ago. They almost instantly became part of the rich Canadian persona. For me it is very important to play them for everyone and anyone, because they help to reconnect us with our living history, plus they are just fun!

“I am very proud that my campfire repertoire features so much Canadian folk music, and that is thematic to the history of our country. Combined with Backroads Bill’s storytelling (we perform, it’s another avocation) , the music creates a very unique educational, interesting, and fun experience for all who enjoy an evening campfire at the Canadian Ecology Centre.”

The song was an often-learned grade school song. Krista Tucker Petrick lived at the Abitibi Canyon colony from 1977 to 1982. “We were one of the last families out. When we went to move our things they had already started moving the houses that had been sold, the school was under demolition, and our house had a no trespassing sign on it so they wouldn’t accidentally tear it down.”

The now Principal of Chippewa Secondary School in North Bay recalls. “As I remember it, being I was there from Grade 3-7, we had a little lesson before we learned the song. I do recall singing it at a spring pageant and at the winter carnival.

Hum along as you are driving the back roads the blackflies will be there to greet you at your next destination.