Joe Allen

.when they would corne in from Lootsie lake a couple times a year
with the pack horses you know. Mike Tooey this one:
The snow is disappearing and the grass is green again
We talk of staying at horne now but the talk is all in vain
We talk of clearing the popular land and planting timothy hay
But the lonesome trail is calling and it knows we must obey
Go and get the kitchen blocks, the saddles and the ropes
Bid farewell to the lonesome ranch, bid farewell to your hopes
Saddle up the horses just at break of day
And hit the road for Hazelton and the good old Hudson Bay
It's a long way to Hazelton, two hundred miles or so
It ain't all together the wonder lust for the grub is growing low
We hear the voices calling that are never known to fail
It's the lure of the silent northland, the solemn song of the trail

That lead to the lonesome reaches and beside the canyons grim
Then the Skeena and the Bulkley, where the horses used to swim
They abreast the raging 'current where the waters rush and roar
The weak ones, they'd go under and the strong ones make the shore

We get up at the dawn of the morning and take a look around
There ain't a horse in sight now, we cannot hear a sound
We wade through the vegetation that's covered with dew and frost
We've a long search before us, for the horses they are lost

We're cold and perished and hungary that words can never tell
When far away in the distance we hear the sound of the bell
We hear the distant tingle and we think they're close at hand
But oh how sound did travel in that lonesome wonderful land

Far away in the distance to the mountains covered with snow
And they gleam in the morning sunshine like the tent of the fire
rainbow
Around us the flowers are blooming on the virgin turf and sod
And we stand in awe and worship the wonderful work of God
Such is the ytcha Bunket, before the white man come

With his prayers and his prostitution, his religion and his rum
They brought us the schools and the churches the preist and the
parsons as well
But along with the schools and the churches came the painted
Jeseble
The product of civilization that scorned the native Clutc~
They with their painted faces and a maddening craze for hootch
Oh for another country another one just the same
As that great and grand, and wonderful land before the railroad
came
That great and grand and wonderful land where morning, night and
noon
All that broke the stillness .was the weird laugh of the loon
And now she is raped of her virgin ............... .

At last to get back to the cabin where peace and solitude reign
But oh the stillness is broken by the whistle of the train
We hear the shrieking whistle as it echoes far and near
And falls on the ears of the sour dough with a taunting, mocking
jeer

For the train of magic splendor with its rumble, rush and roar
Shatters the somberous silence that is gone for ever more

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Joe Allen continued

page 3

Now I may have missed a little there.
That's all right, that's very nice.
At the junction of two rivers and below a mountain high

1

Is a little Indian village and the iand of,first sockeye
You can roam around the country and view the scenery grand
But the totems on the hillside are the best that's made by man

Often the still of the evening when the sun is sinking down
You can see the tinted treetops from many miles around
And as darkness soon creeps over and the world is all at rest
You can hear the waters humming with their lonesome tune of the west

But this town is not all beauty though it has sometimes been said
It's similar to the good book where few parts were ever read
For many men have died there not by fortune or by fame
It may have been because they cheated in a quick stud poker game
You've read about the Mounties in this part of the land
With his saddle horses, six gun though he seldom got his man
Now this life is slowly changing and in the years to be
People will soon be forgotten people like yourself and me
What was her name?
Florence Allen.

You husky beast of the northland, you help man to struggle and win
The gold he longed and sought 50r in a land that is yet to begin
Your courage, strength and your nature makes you the greatest of the hound~
You helped in those early discoveries far up on those northern grounds

You toiled and struggled and hungered though your pride could not be lost
When hungar and weariness gripped you ,you tramped on no matter what cost
And the cold crispy nights of the northland you slept neath the sheltering pine
In a bed of white fur you sought comfort while around you the coyotes whine

Joe Allen continued

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The coldness that often overtook you, few men could ever endure
And the comfort of your trail and trampling are unlimited for many and sure
But as others, for you there's a calling when you're lured away in the night
Out in the snow covered open neath the glorious northern lights
But your name will never be forgotten in those northern struggles of yore
You opened a new horizon and your-name shall be stamped on its door

"Sing", "Sing" is the name of the dog. That was "Primsome" by Bill
Polten. He sold out to a town site company, people, Ross+Howard of
Prince Rupert and they had a surveillance of town sites and the fall
of '11, Frank Morter started a little store, little log store in Houston.
There was practically nothing doing there at the time due to the fact that
the Highway road was way up above Houston, it didn't go through Houston
at the time so that there wasn't much business for a while until the
railroad came in and the railroad got in there in '13. The little
log hotel went up .. · Since then it's been going.
What has made it grow? What is it a centre for?

•

Well lumbering has been good there you see and ranching has picked
up considerably. In the early days it was frosty but not nearly so
frosty today.
Not nearly so frosty?

••

Not nearly so frosty today as it was fifty years ago.
What took you to Houston in the first place? Why did you go there?
I don't know, that's a hard question to answer. I threw some saddle
horses, threw some saddles on some saddle horses down there east Kootnies
and I come up this country. Up through the Windamear and a ship to
Ashcroft and from Ashcroft in by pack horse. It was a new country

Joe Allen continued

page 5

starting, should be a good place to go to 'but when the steal connected
in '14 the war broke out, that dumped everything. Then the next,
shortly after that the depression and next war but I figure the country
is just starting now. There's possibilities and I farmed at Houston
there for a number of years and in the winter months I would freight
for the railroad company. In '12 the train got this far from Rupert
and it was held here due to some tunnels out here in the Bulkley
cannon and that ,meant that alot of freight had to be moved by horse to
the camps at the mine right through to Burns Lake and some went through
to Fraser lake by horse and I would freight in the winter months.
farming in the summer.
Yea, I didn't keep any stock only the horses to work. Nothing to hold
me on the farm in the winter months and then there are people who followed
the same game, there was good money in freighting in those days.

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