“Pokegama Bear”

Description

Lumbermen encounters the Pokegama bear. Morris O'Hearne tells the men to run; (they have humorous accidents). Mike McAlpin kills the bear with an axe; the grease is divided up among the men, and the meat cooked and eaten.

Long description

A crew of lumbermen encounters the Pokegama bear. Morris O'Hearne, who first flushes him, tells the men to run; Jimmy Quinn runs into a porcupine. The bear heads for the swamp; O'Hearne follows, but slips and falls under it. Mike McAlpin chases down and kills the bear with an axe; the grease is divided up among the men, and the meat cooked and eaten. O'Hearne gets the skin; "Long life to you and long growth to your hair/When it's greased with the fat from Pokegama Bear"

Notes

Pokegama Lake is a very wide area of the upper Mississippi River. - PJS

Paul Stamler didn't list this as a humorous item, but the versions I recall hearing (I think from John Berquist, though I've heard other Minnesotans mention it) generally have comic aspects as the loggers flee the bear. The tune seems to have wandered a bit, too, though that may just be my memory. - RBW

Cross references

• cf. "Vilikens and his Dinah (William and Dinah) [Laws M31A/B]" (tune & meter) and references there

Recordings

• Art Thieme, "Pokegama Bear" (on Thieme06)