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Worksongs |
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Oh, some may sit in their swivel chairs,
'Midst the cities' rush and rumour,
And fret o'er the cares of the world affairs
And the woes of the poor consumer.
But I don't envy such gilded ease;
Just give me the salt-soaked ocean breeze,
The lift and surge of the white-capped seas,
And the deck of a halibut schooner.
I want no fuss with the pale-faced cuss,
The clerk or piano tuner,
Who spend their lives in those stifling hives
In the struggle for more mazuma.
But give me the windswept ocean's space
Where the "flat ones" flop in the dory's waist
And the salt scud whips in your upturned face
As you pull for the side of the schooner.
Yes, give me a packet that's sound and tight
And a skipper with guts to boom her,
Up under the heel of the Northern Lights
Where the grey seas strive to doom her.
Through the grinding ice, where the ground lines freeze,
Through the howling gales and the pounding seas-
For it's into such tranquil spots as these,
You must drive with a halibut schooner.
We earn what we get, you may lay to that
Though we sometimes "pull a boner";
For the weather that's brewed off Yakutut,
It can change like a woman's humour.
When the "queer thing" flies to the schooner's truck,
We slash our gear and damn our luck,
For we've time for naught but to cut and duck
For safety, aboard the schooner.
And then, when our schooner is safe in port,
And we land in a boisterous humour,
We thank the gods that our stay is short
And wish we were leaving sooner.
We're rough and we're coarse and we're loud-what then?
We're the salt of the earth; we're dorymen
And tomorrow night we'll be off again
To the banks in a halibut schooner.
Historical Notes
A.K. Larsen: "I found a typewritten copy of 'The Doryman' in a locker I was cleaning out on joining the diesel schooner Aleutian in 1939. I showed it to the rest of the crew but they knew nothing of its origin." (Interview by PJT, May 30 1974). M., PJT.
This is a song describing the life of halibut fishermen, dating from the 1920s. Halibut schooners would sail from ports on the west coast up to the halibut grounds off the coast of Alaska. Small boats or "dories" would be put down and the dorymen would row out. Since the halibut is a bottom fish, the dorymen would drop "long lines" of two thousand feet with baited hooks nine feet apart, so that the line sat on the bottom.
Each end of the long line had a rope attached on the surface to a buoy to mark it. Verse 2: "...mazuma..." was a slang term for money. Verse 3: "...packet..." was a sailor's name for a ship. Verse 4: "...queer thing flies to the schooner's truck..." meant the ship's lookout would be able to see bad weather coming faster than the doryman, in which case, a "queer thing" (anything unusual and inappropriate, such as a basket) would be hoisted to the top mast. When the dorymen saw the "queer thing," they would cut their lines and row for safety back to the schooner.
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