When the Drive Comes Down up >>
    By Douglas Malloch, 1910

Things is quiet in the town-
Boys is up the stream;
No one ever blows aroun’
Life is like a dream.
Must be much as twenty days
Since I’ve been in a fight;
People walk in peaceful ways,
Go to bed at night
Law aint broke - or even bent -
In the good old town;
But it will be different
When the drive comes down.


When the drive comes down
Things’ll sizzle brown;
Business will be boomin’ then -
When the drive comes down.


The Abandonded Village up >>
   By Dorothy Weissert Spade

There once was a village on the Green Bay shore;

Its name was Ford River; now it lives no more
T’was a beautiful vale, encircled by pine,
By cedars, huge hemlocks and trees of all kind.
Through the vale flowered the river; on its banks stood the mill:
But the fresh bubbling spring is still singing its flow,
With the same rippling laughter, as it used to go:
Alone in its silence, it sings night and day,
For the old time villagers that departed away.
T’is strange that a village once so prosperous and gay
Should fall unto rest and be left to decay.
The mill ceased going for the timber demand
Could not be supplied from the forestland.
The great lumber docks near the mill of the town,
Have long since decayed and are now tumbling down.
The once familied homes are in ruins and decay;
Like Acadians the settlers have scattered away
To newly built towns of the same northern clime,
But none like Ford River can they ever find.
There were Swedes and Germans and every nationality,
All joined together, in kind hospitality.
Every villager and family were treated alike,
To be kind and charitable was each one’s delight.
As brothers and sisters, they shared in sweet love,
Their main trust and guidance was their God above.
T’was He who made the foliage grow;
T’was He who showered down blessings of snow;
T’was He who made the sunshine fall
On every villager, one and all.
Now the village has turned to a fishermen’s nest;
They fish the Bay Shore from east to west;
For them the sunshine still brightens the town;
For them fresh rains are showered down;
For their children the old brown school still stands;
T’is there they attend in scant numbered bands;
T’is they who drive the melancholy away,
For they laugh and sing throughout the day;
As the former villages of years ago,
They trust in God, in their sorrow and woe.


Indian Town - Misery Bay up >>

                     
                              ~ Cornelia Jensen ~

From Lake Shore Notes, written by Mrs. Cornelia Jensen

Native Americans had many settlements along the Bay De Noquet waters
The settlement at Misery Bay was started in 1780 by members of the Potawatomi, Ojibwe
and Ottawa nations from Ontario. 

The beautiful bay where the forest stood to the waters edge was a favored place because of the shelter it provided from the “Kee-way-din”—the northwest wind.  The mouth of the creek
afforded a safe and sheltered harbor for their boats and canoes.  At a later date, the First
Nations people named this creek, “No-See-Em,” no doubt referring to the small gnats with the
big sting which were present in the spring and early summer.

Homes were made of a framework of saplings and covered with bark that had been stripped
into large and long sheets.  The men had fine hunting, fishing and trapping in the virgin woods,
while the women gathered the prolific berries and herbs.

The arrival of the Ford River Lumber Company in 1867
changed their ways of living

Many went to work at the mills and slab lumber replace the bark as the material to
build their homes.

After the closing of Ford River mills, some of the Native Americans moved to the Indian reserve in Harris.

How Misery Bay Got It’s Name

In the early 1870’s, fish camps provided fish for local residents.  At one time, when fishing was 
poor, two men named the place “Misery Bay,” which is the name it still carries.