Tales Of An Old Town Versifier

Tales of an Old Town Versifier

by Anthony Foliot Snowking

Copyright Anthony Foliot Published by

Verge Communications Ltd. 2015 ISBN 978-0-9949132-3-4 Cover painting by Monique Robert Back cover photo by Dan McGinnis Book design by Jillian Mazur

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Acknowledgements I am grateful to the NWT Arts Council for their encouragement and support. I thank Judith, Fran, and Jonquil for going to bat for me, and urging me on. The support from Brent Reaney and Verge Publishing is the best kind you could ask for. My wife deserves credit and thanks for always telling me to “read this” and for listening to me, mostly patiently, tell the same story over and over and over again. During this publishing process, I became especially thankful for her fastidious attention to punctuation and style. I get a lot of story ideas sitting around drinking with my buddy Scott.

He has a good memory. I’ve been inspired and encouraged by the works of poet Anita Lahey, who thinks the poems of men are “cannonballs fired over moats.”

Way to go, miss.

Thanks to Indio Saravanja, who has contributed so much to my work. He’s good with choruses and arrangements. My neighbours Peter and Ben are great listeners and suggesters. Thanks to Captain Dave Smith of the Tug Hearne Channel for the inspirational East Arm voyages and my sister Cathy for keeping my feet warm. Thanks, as well, to Marion Lavigne and Ronne Heming for originally publishing Fritz and Otto, Ballad of 500 Words and The Underwear of Lucky Jimmy as part of Up Here magazine’s Robert Service Poetry Contest. I also thank the citizens of Old Town Yellowknife for having a place in their hearts for a versifier. There’s not much room for them these days, versifiers, I mean.

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A Rubber Boot and Ball Cap Renaissance Man I first met Anthony Foliot in the early ‘80s out at Fort Reliance, a little ghost town on the further eastern reaches of Great Slave Lake where no road has ever been, nor will ever go. He was Tony to me, a skinny kid with long sandy hair, joking blue eyes and a big shit-eating grin, fresh from Dollard-des-Ormeaux, a Montreal suburb.

He’d come to Reliance for an adventure from Lutselk’e (then known as Snowdrift) where he was an honorary eager beaver helping people build their homes. I stood at the door of my log cabin and waved goodbye, shaking my head as he headed off into the desolate barrenlands on a hunting trip up to Artillery Lake with the last of the great trappers, Noel Drybones and his family. Noel was tough as grizzly sinew with a sharp practical eye and experience on the land that was unmatched by few, if any.

Tony was in for a priceless life lesson, an epic journey. I knew there was no canoe for him once they got to the lakes above Pikes Portage. Noel and his family would be paddling, Tony and Noel’s dogs would be walking with full packs on the rocky shore, clouds of blood-thirsty bugs for a crown. In Noel’s mind, a two-legged pack animal was better than none.

Weeks later, a sunburned Tony returned to my cabin even skinnier. He was a bit wiser, real hungry but still grinning, happy to have so many stories to throw in that empty warehouse of a head young men think is full of high-performance brains.

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Think of this book of verse as a lyrical inventory of everything Tony’s thrown into that warehouse since he came North decades ago. Folk artist, Potemkin king, lilliputian admiral, potato punk rocker, Great Slave Lake deckhand, frozen hall impresario and, of course, Old Town Versifier. That young man I met on the red shale shore of Police Bay has morphed many times, a rubber boot and ball cap Renaissance man romping through a starry universe of rough edges.

Go inside and see the collected wonders for yourself. If you can come up with a pithy line for the book cover when you’re finished, let me know. Or if you buy Anthony an expensive scotch, he might explain it all to you... in so many words.

— Bruce Valpy

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Contents Tug Boat Travel..........................................15 Jimmy 453..................................................17 Sucker Calm..............................................19

Fog-boy......................................................20

Smokin’ on the Water.................................23

Two Ships in the Night..............................25

The Silver Belle...........................................27 The Ingraham Tale.....................................30

Kicker Horse Power....................................35 A Summer Day..........................................37

I Always Fall for Autumn...........................42 Echoes on a Small Town Sidewalk.............44 My Mother and my Brothers.....................45

My Sister’s Socks........................................46 Tech-no Thank you....................................47

speak of the devil........................................48 Plumber’s Bum...........................................49 One Dollar Smoke.....................................50

Verses for the Missus..................................51 The Moniker of Jennifer.............................53 Fritz and Otto............................................55 The Ballad of Five Hundred Words...........58 The Underwear of Lucky Jimmy................61

Bullshit in the Coffee shop.........................64 The Ditch-picker........................................68

Road Trip Down South..............................70 Looks like My Job is on the Line...............76

The Frozen Spud on Franklin Avenue........81

Index of first lines.......................................83

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Tales of an Old Town Versifier

by Anthony Foliot Snowking

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Tug Boat Travel I have a friend and neighbour I call him Skipper Dave.

We cruise along the big lake the one they call Great Slave.

We drive a little tug boat it’s tough but not too large.

We’re hauling over fifty tons on a vintage leaky barge.

The tug is named Hearne Channel it’s almost old as me.

When the wind it starts to blow you’d swear you’re on the sea.

We head out to the East Arm and points along the way, dropping off fuel or mining gear in Christie or McLeod bay.

Old Skipper Dave, he knows the spots to hunker out a storm, and how to get a bit more life from a solenoid that’s worn.

Well that old tug keeps chugging on to all the usual stops, and the galley stove despite its age is used to cook pork chops.

Now after cruising thirty hours we’ll anchor if we can, and drop a line to catch a trout to bring back home to Fran.

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So if you’re on the big lake and you hear a rumbling sound of the diesel jimmy chugging on you’ll know that we’re around.

And you can keep your plastic boat burning gallons by the hour, ’cause I prefer a tug that’s steel and has a lot of power.

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Jimmy 453 To hear the grind of Jimmy four five three as we cruise down Great Slave Lake, it’s loud and obnoxious but it’s music to me with its rumbles and shudders and shakes. ’Cause Jimmy, he sits down in the hold spinning the big brass prop, as long as you keep him in diesel and oil he probably never would stop.

But I’ll tell you about one time in the fog when I was searching for the beacon, I cruised into a little gap but not the one I was seeking.

Because you see I had made a mistake I had entered into a bay, yes it took me a while to figure it out that it wasn’t a passageway.

Then now a cliff it started to loom way up ahead off the bow, the depth sounder showed the lake bottom was coming up fast right now.

Yes the fog was thick and I started to sweat and my heart began to pound, right then I knew to get out of this mess I’d have to turn around.

Now I’m not supposed to slow Jimmy four five three, the Skipper’s rules were clear.

But the fog and the reefs had hemmed me in and that cliff wall was pretty near.

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