Ballad Of Dead Man's Point Poem by Paul Henry Dallaire

Folklore

This is a song about a the great fire that in 1911 destroyed the town of Porcupine ON. (Then called Golden City)Canada, now called Timmins. Roughly 300 people died and many are not accounted for because there were many prospectors in the bush at the time.

Strolling along by the lakeshore
I came by an old graveyard
The words written on a tombstone
Set my mind back many years ago

The year was nineteen eleven
T'was one hot July summer's day
Smoke filled the air then like an eclipse
The sky turned as black as the night

Chorus:
Our little town burned to dust many lives were lost
And it left behind a trail of woe ans ashes
Those who died that day may their ghosts lead on the way
And protect us from another God we pray

Verse:
The fire came like thief in the night
With a wind crazy blowin wild
Down in the mine some went there to hide
But suffocated and did not survive

Others ran to the lakeside
Fleeing for their lives
Men and their horses could be safe there
But in the waters were doomed there to die

Narration

If ever when your fishing for Pickerel on Porcupine lake
Just down the hill at dead man's point
The always blowin breeze will connect you
To the past of North Ontario

And if you standing there gazing at the gravesites
Alongsidethe Loon calls and the lonesome jackpine grows
You can see the spot where the Weisse family's sleepin
Found in that mine shaft dark and deep below

Chorus:
Our little town burned to dust many lives were lost
And it left behind a trail of woe and heartaches
Those who died that day may there ghosts lead on the way
And protect us from another God we pray

Paul Henry Dallaire
Paul Henry Pub.
SOCAN

U.S. Rep: ASCAP