The Mountie Song

The Arrogant Worms are a Canadian trio, singing satirical and humorous songs about Canada. The Mountie Song pokes fun at the ceremonial aspect of being a member of Canada's national police force. Of course, in many towns they are the only police, and do all the normal police jobs including highway patrol and traffic duties.

Klondike Gold Rush, North-West Mounted Police officers, Yukon, 1900


The Mountie Song

When I was a kid I wanted to grow up and be cop in a province town or county
I thought it would be great if someday I could only ever be a mountie
I wanted to beat up crooks and make arrests because that's part of the profession
But now I sit on my horse and tell American tourists the Parliament's in session
I really don't look good in red and my stupid hat flies off my head in every parade
I'm young and strong and have no fear but now I'm spending my career in motorcades

I wanna enforce the law, I wanna wear normal clothes
I don't wanna have to smile for diplomats' home videos
I good at working real hard, I should have joined the coast guard
Oh no, the RCMP
Is not the life for me

I used to think that a mountie had to be honest, loyal, humble, strong and thrifty
But even though we don't break ranks, we get no thanks, they took us off the fifty (dollar bill)
On Sussex Drive in hallowed halls we act like guards in shopping malls, it's such a pain
Like someone's plotting the assassination of the Minister of Sports and Recreation, oh that's insane
Sometimes I just want to puke on Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, Dudley Do-Right's such a jerk (Damn you, Snidely)
And though he tries with all his heart, my horse couldn't catch a golfing cart, some days I hate to go to work

I wanna enforce the law, I wanna wear normal clothes
I don't wanna have to smile for diplomats' home videos
I good at working real hard, I should have joined the coast guard
Oh no, the RCMP
Is not the life for me

I wanna enforce the law, I wanna wear normal clothes
I don't wanna have to smile for diplomats' home videos
I good at working real hard, I should have joined the coast guard
Oh no, the RCMP
Is not the life for me

Oh, no, it's not the life for me
Oh, no, it's not the life for me, m-m-me, m-m-me, m-m-me, m-m-me, m-m-me, m-m-me, m-m-me, m-m-me, m-m-me, m-m-me, m-m-me, m-m-me, m-m-me

'The Cremation of Sam McGee'

Here is the text of the poem which you heard in our first session. Please read it on your own and bring your questions to class. I have added some illustrations by Ted Harrison. They are from a children's book of the poem. I bought a copy of the book at the Yukon Pavilion at EXPO86 in Vancouver and used to read the poem to my small children as a bedtime story. Gradually they learned large parts of the poem and could finish a verse after I gave them the first words.

'The Cremation of Sam McGee'

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
  By the men who moil for gold;
 The Arctic trails have their secret tales
  That would make your blood run cold;
 The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
  But the queerest they ever did see
 Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
  I cremated Sam McGee.

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he'd often say in his homely way that he'd "sooner live in hell".



On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see;
It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.



And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
"It's the cursed cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'tain't being dead -- it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."



A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains."

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows -- O God! how I loathed the thing.

And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May".
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then "Here", said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-ium."

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared -- such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.



Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside.
I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked";. . . then the door I opened wide.



And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close that door .
It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm --
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm."

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
  By the men who moil for gold;
 The Arctic trails have their secret tales
  That would make your blood run cold;
 The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
  But the queerest they ever did see
 Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
  I cremated Sam McGee.

-- Robert Service

You can see maps and illustrations of the poem here;
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5672398

The Beaver

How could a nation choose a large rodent as a national symbol?

The quest for religious and political freedom is often cited as the reasons Europeans colonized North America, but natural resources were another major draw. These included whales, vast schools of cod, and towering lodgepole pines used for ship's masts. But the resource that lured explorers across the continent was really the beaver.

Why did adventurers cross oceans in their quest for this big rodent? You can find the answer and read more about the beaver at this location;

http://members.shaw.ca/kcic1/beaver.html

Sir Sandford Fleming assured the beaver a position as a true National Symbol when he featured it on the first Canadian postage stamp - the "Three Penny Beaver" of 1851.