Are You From Bevan refers to the struggle of Vancouver Island coal miners to establish a union.

The recording is by Phil Thomas accompanied by Barry Hall (vocal, guitar) & Michael Thomas (mandolin), from Phil’s LP/CD Where the Fraser River Flows (1962).

[BC Archives photograph: “Miners at Extension mine, near Bevan.”]

Duration: 3 min. 10 sec.

The song was collected by Phil from the singing of John Strachan, of Union Bay, in 1969. It can be found in Phil’s Songs of the Pacific Northwest p.131-135 (Hancock House, 1979; revised edition, edited by Jon Bartlett, 2006, p.160-164).

Lyrics:

Well, hello, stranger, how do you do?
There’s something I’d like to say to you.
You seem surprised I recognize;
I’m no company stool but I just surmise
You’re from the place I’m longing to be.
Your smiling face seems to say to me
You’re from the island, your land and my land,
So tell me can it be-

Chorus

Are you from Bevan? I said from Bevan
Where those fields of stumps they beckon to me.
I’m glad to see you!
Tell me how be you,
And those friends I’m longing to see?
If you’re from Union Bay or Courtenay or Cumberland
Any place below that Bevan second dam-
Are you from Bevan? I said from Bevan,
‘Cause I’m from Bevan too!

Now it was way back in 19 and 12
Our gas committee was put on the shelf.
First we walked out, then we were locked out-
Then by a foul we were all but knocked out.
Our union miners faced guns and jail,
Hundreds of us were held without bail,
But by August 1914 our labor they were courting,
But they blacklisted me-

Collected by Phil Thomas. Lyrics from the singing of Phil and Hilda Thomas and Songs of the Pacific Northwest by Thomas, Philip J., Saanichton, B.C.: Hancock House Publishers Ltd., 1979. #37 p. 131. Used with permission from the author.