Low Down Articles
In the Hills
Article 8 of 18
This article first appeared in the "In the Hills" column in the October 15, 2008 issue of the The Low Down to Hull and Back News.
Reprinted with permission. Search complete list of Low Down Articles.
o o o
Barn dance caller returns after 70 long years
by Catherine Joyce
It has been 70 years since Doug Cowden stood under the rafters at the Healey Farm. The year was 1938, March 17th, a magical winter's night when his parents brought a sleigh load of friends into the farm to celebrate St. Patrick's Day with a barn dance. His father played the fiddle, his mother the washtub. Young Doug was just nine years old.
On Wednesday, Oct. 8, Doug returned under the auspices of the Gatineau Valley Historical Society to be the caller for an old-fashioned Square Dance in honour of the refurbishing of the Healey Farm. Joined by a large contingent of the Wakefield Walkers, members of the historical society hiked in through golden autumn leaves with Al Richens telling stories of the early years along the Herridge Lodge trail.
By the time they arrived at the farm, Dave Maitland of the NCC had set the fire to warm the room, where after a picnic lunch the hikers danced to the old-tyme tunes of Paul Fydenchuk on fiddle, and his wife, Beth MacFie, on keyboard.
Doug Cowden was in his element. From a pioneer family that had come out from Ireland during the potato famine of 1840, Doug was a third generation Cowden. Born the youngest of five children, on June 25,1929, he was raised on the Cowden Farm at the south end of the Meech Creek Valley. If you cross Cowden Bridge today, you can still see the old swimming hole where the local kids used to swim. In those days there were ten working farms in the valley, a all self-sufficient. In ad.dition to dairy cows, pigs, chickens, sheep, and a large kitchen garden, the Cowdens had 40 acres of tillable land to grow hay, grain and corn.
Like many farmers, they augmented their income by renting out small summer cottages on their land, from May 1 to the end of September. Their house had six bedrooms, of which four were also rented to summer city folk, who commuted to town on the daily train.
As teenagers, Doug and his friends danced on the outdoor platform at the Tip Top Restaurant in Cascades. He remembers wearing a zoot-suit with a long chain down the leg and swinging to the tune of "Don't Slide Down My Cellar Door" on the nickelodeon.
In 1948, at the age of 19, he began calling "squares". He sent away to Toronto for two books to teach him the calls, and he listened to his mentors, Clarence Smith and Clifford McLellan, at the local dances. One night at the Wakefield Hall, with 20 sets of people (four couples to a set) and no sound system, he discovered he had a voice like a megaphone - "I got my voice from calling cows."
By 1960 Doug had moved to town, soon becoming the Service Manager for Mack trucks with all of West Quebec and Eastern Ontario as his territory. He would return on weekends to the family farm, longing for the familiar natural setting of his childhood. He'd always thought of the farm as his retirement project but by the mid-1970s, the Quebec government began expropriating the farm lands in the Meech Creek Valley for a zoo. Although nothing ever came of these plans, when Doug looks out over the valley today, he sees the threat of an even greater loss - "Never mind the highway. In a few years, without the cows, this valley will be unrecognizable. The bush will have taken over completely."
A day in autumn at the Healey Farm brings back all the old memories of a time when this valley was alive with country music, community spirit and the resourceful energy of a pioneer people.