Hand Logging
Technology
Yuculta Rapids
Song: Up the Ucletaw
Learning Activities
Extension and Research Activities
Resource List

Up the Ucletaw” is a traditional B.C. folk song written in the 1890s. It’s about the hand loggers who travelled from Vancouver and Victoria up the coast to a place known as the “Ucletaw.” “Pitch-Backs” is the name the loggers gave to the Douglas Fir trees. In the 1890s one traveller on his way through the Yuculta rapids had this to say about the area:

We sail on, past huge fir-covered mountains where snowy heads rest against the deep blue sky above, through virgin seas and deserted spaces where the steamer’s whistle, reverberating through the hills, puts up flocks of wild duck. We sail through Euclataw Rapids and see around us in the cold moonlight the evil-eddying currents which would jeopardise the safety of a small boat.

Download MP3 of the song Way Up The Ucletaw (2.2 MB)

A version of this song was found in Songs of the Pacific Northwest by Philip J. Thomas (UBC Website Link).

Up the Ucletaw

Words and Music: Traditional (unknown) except 1st stanza written by Philip J. Thomas

Come all you bull-necked loggers and hear me sing my song
It is very short -- it will not take me long
We had blankets for to travel and biscuits for the chaw
We were in search of pitch-backs way up the Ucletaw

We’re leaving Vancouver with sorrow, grief and woe
Heading up the country a hundred miles or so
With blankets for to travel and biscuits for the chaw
We were in search of pitch-backs way up the Ucletaw

We hired fourteen loggers. We hired a man to saw
We had an awful cook—he ran the hotcakes raw
We had blankets for to travel and biscuits for the chaw
We were in search of pitch-backs way up the Ucletaw
We were in search of pitch-backs way up the Ucletaw