Finding Your Roots

Gard was a kind of cultural historian, what we might call a folklorist.

- Okay?

- Yes.

He interviewed people and collected local stories.

Would you please read the part we've transcribed for you?

"A HULL SONG OF THE LONG AGO.

I one day chanced to heard an old "Come-all-ye" being hummed by a man who lived in South Hull.

"It is," said he, "a song written many years ago by a Hull school teacher on the drowning of three young men."

I learned from Mr. James Moore, the nephew of the "Benjamin Moore," in the song that these four young men proposed to do what had never been before attempted, to run a boat or canoe over the Chaudire Falls."

This is a story about a song and the song is about your family.

What is happening?

The Chaudire Falls are a set of cascading waterfalls near Hull.

At their height, they're over a hundred feet tall, an enormous drop.

But in 1815, Alanis's fourth great-grandfather, James, along with his brother-in-law and two other men decided to ride over them and they all ended up in a folk song.

Can you imagine taking a boat over those falls?

I can.

- Then you're crazy then.

- Yes.

I could see it runs in your family.

It is.

Just like that dude.

Metaphor wise, I always think of myself at the front of a parade or a march that I have the flag and I'm at the front.

I'm the one willing to get my head chopped off.

This is the quality that I'm sensing from him.

Yeah, well you came by it honestly.

We don't know what motivated James and his companions.

They may have been swept over the falls as they attempted to deliver timber nearby, But according to this book, it seems like they wanted to do it simply because it hadn't been done before, and they paid a heavy price for their courage.

"Intending to run them o'er, their course they did pursue.

Their boat ran with swift motion, and from it they were threw."

"Benjamin Moore and William Wright, likewise Asa Young.

Those three young men were drowned, and from their boat were flung.

But James McConnell was preserved for he swam safe to shore, down by those islands where the foaming waters roar."

So as a songwriter, what do you think of the lyrics?

We got any uh- Some classic good stuff here.

They got legs here?

Can we do something with that?

- Some high quality- Yes, I can work with this, definitely.

Yeah.

What do you think of this story?

This story actually happened.

Yeah, no, it's um, the whole idea, not only of understanding that it was Hull in that Ottawa River, which I have a deep affinity for, but the fact that they were doing something for the first time.

You know, there's such a high risk, high sensation-seeking quality to the exploration too, so that readiness to just go for it, - Mm-hmm.

- I resonate with.

Though James had survived the falls, his brother-in-law, Benjamin Moore drowned.

And when James and his wife, Susan, had a child the following year, they named him Benjamin McConnell in honor of their lost relative.

Preserving his memory, even as the details of his death faded down the generations.

Wow!

What's it been like for you to learn this story?

It really invigorates my curiosity to go even further in the history of what they were doing.

Feeling-wise, the relief of his having survived.

It's the felt sense, and then just so much intense stuff happened.

I just think about their resilience and their ability to keep going in the face of tragedies.

Pretty poignant for me.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- And admirable, - Yes, admirable.