Vic Bell’s Snap the Line Tight is a wonderfully descriptive song about log salvaging on our coast. The work of log salvaging was brought to the awareness of the general public by the television show The Beachcombers but the reality is properly brought to life in his song from the 1960’s.

Words and music © Vic Bell SOCAN. Used by his kind permission.

Duration: 2 min. 40 sec.

Vic tells how he made a quick career change from fishing to log salvaging after arriving on the B.C. Coast from Calgary to look for work. He now lives back in Alberta.

This version is being sung by the Vancouver folk group Fraser Union with Roger Holdstock leading the group.

LYRICS:

1.     Got a halibut boat, the openin’ is over,
The fish just weren’t bitin’, our catch is way down;
We’re salvagers now, there’s logs waitin’,
We just go snatch ’em off shore and we sell ’em in town; and we-

Chorus:
Snap the line tight, haul’er away! Snap the line light, she’s rockin’, she’s free!
Snap the line tight, haul’er away! Slide ’em off into the sea.

2.     She’s a six-foot thick hemlock half-sunken in sand,
Gotta’ dig out a hole for to pass the lines through,
Wrap her around and when she’s tied and ready,
Then stand clear away while you signal the crew; to-

3.     And it’s thirty-six hours we’ve been without sleep,
Got to boom them by dawn if we’re makin’ this tide;
It’s a five hour haul, with a Northwester blowin’,
And a starboard-side swell for a bloody rough ride; and we-

4.     And our back-deck’s a mess of anchors and peavies,
All slidin’ an’ tangled in cables and chain;
We’re in the middle with pike poles and chokers,
To wrap the logs tight, so they’re not lost again; and we-

5.     Well how many thousands of acres of forest,
Lie scattered and heaped by the wind and the tide?
The companies cut them, boomed them and lost them,
And left them forever to rot where they lie; but we-

SNAP THE LINE TIGHT!

 

The song has been very popular amongst the folksinging community. It has also been recorded by:

James Keelaghan on “Timelines” (TM-1, LP, 1987);
Fraser Union with the Vancouver Industrial Writers’ Union on “Split Shift: Songs and Poems of the Workplace” (cassette, 1989);
Natural Elements on “Winter Moon” (EP102C, cassette);
Fraser Union on “Hello, Stranger!” (cassette, 1991);
Tom Lewis on “Sea-Dog, See Dog!” (Flying Fish FF70547, CD and cassette).