When we were at the Canadian Museum of History recently, Eleanor and I pored over the Canadian stamp collection. One set of stamps that caught my eye was a series of folk heroes. Along with Laura Secord of War of 1812 fame, were three men. Today, I’m going to tell you about Jos Montferrand, Legendary Lumberjack.

Biography

Joseph “Jos” Montferrand was born in Montreal in 1802 and became famed for his strength from a young age. When he was sixteen he felled an English-speaking boxing champion with one punch. He joined the Hudson’s Bay Company as a voyageur at age twenty-one. He later worked briefly for a manufacturing company in New Hampshire, but spent most of his life in the lumber trade. He was a logger on the Rivière du Nord and the Ottawa River and worked as a foreman for many years, becoming legendary for defending other French-Canadians against English-Canadian loggers and gangs of Irish immigrants (known as Shiners). He died in Montreal in 1864.

Tall Tales

Monferrand was a legend in his own time, but over the years the stories about him grew into tall tales like those told about Paul Bunyan. His nickname Big Joe Mufferaw is an Anglicization of Montferrand. His story was told by French-Canadian writer Benjamin Sulte in 1884 and he appears in several twentieth century books about Ottawa Valley folklore.

A great way to hear some of the tall tales is in the song “Big Joe Mufferaw” that Stompin’ Tom released in 1970. Here are a couple verses:

And they say Big Joe had an old pet frog
Bigger than a horse and he barked like a dog
And the only thing quicker than a train upon a track
Was Big Joe riding on the bull-frog’s back

Now Joe had the portage from the Gattineau down
To see a little girl he had in Kempville town
He was back and forth so many times to see that gal
The path he wore became the Rideau Canal

Legacy

A statue of Montferrand carved by Peter Cianafrani was erected in Mattawa, Ontario in 2005. He is also the inspiration for Big Joe, the mascot of the Ottawa Redblacks football team. And of course there’s the postage stamp that inspired this post; it was issued in 1992.