Fiddlers of James Bay Transcription
- Oh what. They're well caught.
- [Narrator] James Bay, Northern Quebec.
- Wet fish, sweet fish. (Cree) A carp, a carp, a carp.
- [Narrator] For centuries, the chant and the hunter's drum were the only music of the Cree Indians of James Bay. Then, 300 years ago, a new musical instrument came to Canada.
- What's that, what's that?
- [Narrator] The fiddle was small and light. It was easy to carry on hunting trips and the Cree quickly took to the new music. Today, many Cree hunters are master fiddlers. One of the best is Ray Spencer.
- Something very familiar about that tune.
- Yeah, I don't recognize the tune, but that is just a typical local style.
- [Fiddler 1] That's it, it's a local style.
- If I walked into a- a farm or a dance or something here and I heard somebody playing that, I would never think twice, you know, I would never say, I would never think he was a foreigner.
- [Narrator] It may seem strange that these men find this music familiar. They're Orcadians, inhabitants of the Orkney Islands, off the northern tip of Scotland, some 7,000 kilometers from the source of the music they're listening to.
- That one?
- [Narrator] Ray Spencer's great-grandfather was born in Scotland. He settled in Canada with an Indian bride. A country wife.
- [Ray] Yeah, these are all sisters and that's-
- [Narrator] Ray understands only a few words of English. He knows the name of this tune is, "The girl I Left Behind Me" but he has no idea what it means. Like thousands of Scots, Ray's great-grandfather was drawn to the New World by the promise of work. He became a servant of the Hudson Bay Company. Most of the Scots eventually went home, but some stayed, like Fort Albany Factor, Bill Anderson.
- I signed a three year contract and came over here. After three years I liked the country well enough to come back on another contract, and so it went on through the years. One contract after another, and I still came back, and here I am still here and 50 years later.
- [Narrator] Do you have children?
- No, not, not legally. But I have children all right, which I recognize myself.
- [Narrator] And you're still in contact with them?
- Oh yeah.
- [Narrator] How many do you have?
- Well, I didn't actually count them, but two to be sure.
- [Narrator] Most children born of the early marriages between Crees and Scots were brought up as Crees. Today, the descendants know very little of their Scottish ancestors. They remember the Scots only by reputation. When the last of the sailing ships came from Scotland, 77-year-old Ruby McLeod was still a young girl.
- They used to have whiskey. All the companies around, what they call the company farms used to get their allowance of whiskey every fall. And some of them old men make come, make them do them till the next season. Make them do them, they were very mean, you know, they'd give a little drink to anybody, they would put the bottle away again.
- [Narrator] Well, that's what the Scots are like.
- Yeah, well that's what they used to do here. They used to do. They wouldn't go and sit down and go and fill you up with a, empty a bottle on you. No, but it was just one little drink and then they'd put away in the cupboard.
- [Narrator] Although the memories are few, the Scots made a lasting impact in James Bay. Even today, tartan plaids, and Tam O' Shanters are commonplace. Bannock and tea are still staples for Indian hunters all over Canada. Supply ships stopped coming from Scotland at the turn of the century when it became easier to do the job from places like Montreal. One of the last sailing ships to ply the James Bay coast was The Mink. One Scotsman who worked on The Mink was Charlie Luttert's grandfather.
- He was 16 years old, my old grandfather, when he started to work on that boat, you see, and that's where he got this barometer here, you see, in The Mink, I've still got it. But this barometer is over a hundred years now. You see it's still working better, it's better ones than these just now that they're making in Montreal.
- [Narrator] With ships no longer coming from Europe the 200 year old tie with Scotland was broken. But the Cree still play the fiddle, still play the old Scottish tunes, some long forgotten by even the Scots themselves.
- Well, it's really, I couldn't tell you what they must have played. You see, I lost my mother about nine years old, and I was nine years old, eh. And I didn't start playing till quite a lot after that. So I never let it go. Every time I come home for dinner, I never ate much dinner, never ate my supper. I just got a hold of this thing. I dunno how many fiddles I messed up. You know, I used to have thread from my bow string. My daddy used to fix it up because my daddy is a good fiddler, huh.
- [Narrator] Bob McLeod's grandfather was a Scot and it was Bob's father who taught him this tune, "The White Cockade." It's still played in Moose Factory by fiddlers who go door to door, bringing the traditional Scottish New Year's greetings to the people. Wherever the Scots traveled, from the Canadian North to the outports of Australia, their traditions and their music went with them.
- [Narrator 2] You'll always find that music in the fringes of civilization because you'll always find a Scotsman in the fringes of civilization .
- [Narrator] The Orkneys lie even further north than James Bay. On these wind-swept islands it rains half the days of the year and there's frost every month but August. Nobody knows who first settled these islands, who erected these gigantic standing stones long before the birth of Christ. The mainland Scots came here in the mid 15th century, took control and imposed a rigid feudal system. For the next few hundred years, the native Orcadians lived in bitter poverty. Then, in the late 1600s, their lives were changed dramatically. The Hudson Bay Company made Orkney its last port of call and signed on hundreds of poor Orcadians willing to go to the New World. By 1800, four out of every five of the company's servants came from Orkney. The Orkneys grew wealthy from trade with the other side of the Atlantic and with the prosperity, there was less reason for the Orcadians to leave home. The link between Orkney and Canada was severed. The last ship bound for James Bay sailed out in 1891. Bob McLeod, his first trip away from home. For centuries, the Scots had gone to Canada. This is the first visit by the Cree to the Orkneys. Ray Spencer. This tune hasn't been played in Scotland for a hundred years. This is the first time in their lives Ray and Bob have been outside Canada. In fact, the first time they've ever left James Bay. They've never even heard of the Orkney Islands before this trip and have no idea where in the world they are.
- [Man On Dock] Here you are.
- [Ray] Ah thank you.
- [Man On Dock] Okay, whoa, welcome to Stromness.
- [Bob] Hey.
- [Local Man] How are you?
- [Bob] How are ya? Bob McLeod.
- I like you little baby.
- [Father] Oh, now he's smiling.
- [Ray] Get in here.
- [Narrator] This greeting is an Indian tradition. All over Canada, visitors are expected to give money as a gift to children.
- [Ray] Nice baby, very nice baby.
- [Narrator] It was from here, Stromness, that the first Hudson Bay ship sailed for Canada, but there's very little here now the two men can relate to. In James Bay, there are no paved streets, no rows of stone houses, no car traffic.
- [Bob] I think that's a road . St Andrew, the fifth August.
- [Narrator] Ray and Bob are here to play a series of concerts, the first one tonight.
- [Len] 20 minutes there, including if Bob's gonna do a bit of-
- [Narrator] There has been little time to set things up, no time for rehearsals. The two Cree fiddlers are to sit in with a full Orkney orchestra and play it by ear. Not only have they never played with a Scottish orchestra before, they've never played with any orchestra. Indian fiddlers always play alone. No one, including Len Wilson, the concert organizer, is sure what's going to happen.
- This concert, as most of you will be aware, is primarily about the connections between the fiddle music as played by the Cree Indians and fiddle music played here. And I'd like now to introduce to you Bob McLeod, Ray Spencer and Bob Robb- who is a Scots Canadian from Fergus in Ontario.
- [Len] Not only is it the first time they've played with a society, it's the first time they've played together.
- See there, long time ago eh?
- [Narrator] Ray's not clear what the stone plaque is.
- Yeah.
- [Narrator] Afterwards he asked who was buried there. Ray and Bob have been on the islands a couple of days now, but this is their first chance to have a good look round.
- [Bob] What'd you think of it Ray? Cool up here, eh?
- [Ray] Yeah, not like down at Port George and Moose Factory.
- [Narrator] An introduction to the Orkney countryside and an introduction to poultry raising. To Ray it all seems ridiculous. In James Bay you don't feed geese, you shoot them.
- [Farmer] That silenced them.
- [Bob] No, the real sound, the real sound.
- [Farmer] A goose song. Sing, what you sang last night.
- Yeah.
- [Narrator] The Orkney Annual Country Show. This is the first time either man has ever seen a cow. The official opening of the agricultural show is about to begin. The royal limousine has finally arrived. The Queen, just back from a visit to Canada. For Bob this is something special. Back home in Moose Factory, the Queen's picture hangs on his wall. Later he spoke of his disappointment. The Queen looked just like an ordinary person. In his picture, she wears a crown Before the next concert it was thought it would be a good idea to have a rehearsal. Neither Ray nor Bob had had much success with the Scottish style of playing. So this time the orchestra is trying to follow Bob's lead.
- Sometimes in native fiddling in Canada, they tend to not follow bars so much. Like sometimes they'll drop a bar there and that over there, you know?
- [Orchestra member] Yeah.
- And that comes from, well, you don't play with a whole lot of people. You play by yourself. And it doesn't matter because there's nobody trying to catch you. I guess it's gonna be really hard for everybody.
- [Orchestra leader] Now, lets hear them play the-
- Hornpipe.
- [Narrator] The orchestra's going to listen to Bob play alone and once they think they've caught the style, join in.
- [Orchestra director] All right, same tune, , just yourselves.
- Yeah.
- [Narrator] Despite their musical training, the Scots find it as hard to play with Ray and Bob as the Cree found it to play with them. First results are not exactly melodious, but the Scots are getting something out of it.
- From our point of view as fiddlers, I think maybe we've learned a little. Music here has become very much regimented now and there's a set format for playing. You play three pieces and so forth. But your boys, they play completely ad lib. They, every time they play a tune, they play that just a little bit different. And I like especially the way that they just stop when they feel like it. No matter what part of the tune it's in they've got it. They can make an end for it and just finish it off. I think perhaps it used to be like that here. I'm sure it did, I'm sure it was.
- [Narrator] There's an old Orkney legend connected with the great standing stones. It tells of the little people who bring their magic power to the fiddle when anyone plays within the circle of the stones. Whatever the truth of the legend, the two Cree fiddlers find it as good a place as any to rehearse. Their last concert is tonight and they hope with this practice everyone might finally be able to play together. After the last concert, a farewell picnic. Tomorrow the two fiddlers will begin the long trip home to James Bay.
- Well wasn't that comfortable.
- Your gift.
- I didn't know that I should get just a beautiful present from the people around here. A sweater that'll really serve the country down where I came from.
- [Len] Well, I hope so. Bob.
- [Bob] Thank you very much for thinking to send this for me.
- [Len] I Think you deserve it.
- [Ray] Oi!
- [Spectator] Come on, come on.
- [Spectator] Come on.
- [Narrator] For Ray Spencer and Bob McLeod, Scotland will remain what it's always been. A memory kept alive by the old music of another world.
- [Spectator] Put another one on there.
