The story of Tamarack Jack
Derek Neary
Northern News Services
Fort Simpson (Nov 03/00) - It's a song inspired by long-time Northerners and the logs along the riverbanks of the mighty Mackenzie.
Norm Doucette was told by a resident that those logs can take up to 300 years to reach the Beaufort Sea.
The driftwood is picked up and carried as water levels rise and then stranded on another bank for years as the river recedes.
"Over the course of the summer this just kept coming back to me. It's like a metaphor for life, the whole thing," he said. "You have your ups and downs and then you get shuffled along. It's a very spiritual song."
"Tamarack Jack" is a ditty that tells of a man who comes North and is so enchanted by the land and the lifestyle that he settles down, builds a home, finds a wife and has a child. In reality, there are quite a few people who have lived in the NWT for 20 years or more after only planning to spend a week or two, said Doucette, who has been coming to Fort Simpson from Nova Scotia for four years.
"It's a local song," he said. "It's what I see and what I feel around here."
Doucette was also aiming for a distinct local sound so he used a vigorous dose of fiddle music and brushes rather than drums. The brushes represent the sound of the ice cracking, he noted.
The ballad was recorded at Mike Chemery's Dog House a few weeks ago. One hundred copies were released on CD Monday and nearly half of those were already spoken for, according to Doucette. He received positive feedback while performing the tune at a Thanksgiving concert last year and again at Checkpoint. He's also played it in coffee shops in Edmonton and Ottawa.
Although it was recorded recently, the song was a long time in the making. Doucette came up with most of the lyrics in about 20 minutes, but took another year and two months to perfect Tamarack Jack. One line in particular kept giving him trouble. Then one morning as he got out of bed it just popped into his head and came flowing out.
"Whittled on a willow and walked with the wolf ... whoa, that's the verse," he recalled, smiling.
He is friends with an associate of Stompin' Tom Connors and is hopeful that Connors will record Tamarack Jack someday.
Doucette, who has been playing guitar for 35 years, isn't new to the song-writing game. He once wrote a tune about life in the oil patch. He's currently working on a song about a well-dressed, dignified, young woman living in a small town with muddy streets.
But odds are that he's humming Tamarack Jack right now.
"I can't get it out of my head," he said. "It's a winner."
