Princess Maggie Of Kamiskotia Poem by Paul Henry Dallaire

This lady was born at Nighthawk center a little east of Timmins On Canada. I remember my father telling me that she could skin a beaver faster than you could smoke a cigarette.
She was a leader in the sufra jet movement for womans equality rights and she didn't even know it. She was a big name around here but somehow or rather the hometown seemed to have forgotten she ever existed, they even tore her shack down.
It's a shame shame double shame that I can't even find a trace of her in the local graveyard. She married a frenchman by the name of Bill Leclair from Kamiskotia so her full married name was Princess Maggie Buffalo Leclair.
Her father was a full blooded Chipewa Indian.

I guess all that remains is this song I wrote for her.
She liked a little taste of whiskey every once in a while and was very hospitable for woods people who ventured in the area as she live in a cabin which also has been torn apart and nothing remains of that.
She buried a husband and two children on Kamiakotia island.


There was naught but rocks and forests
In our little country town
And that hard rock gold miner
Worked the earth deep underground

Maggie was hard yet gentle
And the will and strength she showed
That she could not be beaten down
By the rain 'n sleet and snow

Besides Kamiskotia mountain
She'd stopped and rest awhile
And drink tea from a cup of birch
For she had walked many weary miles

Over the fields of wheat and corn
She'd sight a flock of Geese
Flyin in military form
So high so wild so free

She represented her culture well
For a proud woman was she
Like Chief Dan George the Indian
She'll go down in history

The springtime sun has melted
All around as you can see
Exept that packed down snow shoe trail
Left by Maggie and me

This verse to be sung:
The years have been so many since the day you were my bride
To-day the snow fall Maggie covering all the coutry side
Very soon eternal spring will bring back the honey bees
And the water of the river will dance for you and me

Just a simple song for Maggie
My life my dream come true
Indian blood flows in her veins
And she speaks the parlez vous

Verse:
We've trecked across this country
In the rain through woodland gree
Watches the Northern Lights at midnight
When the clouds have blown away

And whent the night time brought us home
Sleepin neath the jackpine tree
We'd bathe our feet in the mornin dew
Just you Maggie and me

Now the great of spirits
Have taken her away
May the ghost of Maggie roam these valleys
In Canada's great domain

And when her search is over
May she find not ill remains
Of a land that once was Indian
And is the white man still to blame