The Voice Of A Canadian Angel

The timber voice of Stan Rogers resonated with me the day I arrived in Canada.

Mark Raynes Roberts

Funny how life can come full circle.

When I arrived in Toronto, back in April 1982, aged 21, I knew very few people.

It was a leap of faith.

But having been a keen hockey player in England - that’s field hockey in Canada - I decided the best thing I could do when I wasn’t working was to join the Toronto Field Hockey Club. There were about ten local clubs scattered across the city, who played each other, and during the summer months, touring teams from Australia, the U.S. and the Caribbean would come to play in our tournaments as well.

The incomparable Stan Rogers, one of Canada’s most talented folk singer and songwriters.

Our own team was unique in that we had 16 nationalities playing for us, including South African, Icelandic, Dutch, Aussies, Goan, British Guyanan, Trinidadian, Indian, Kenyan, German, Irish, English, Scottish and even a few Canadians - those who felt using one side of the stick was a more skilled game than Canada’s version on ice ha ha!

Those were magical early days in Canada as I learnt so much from being around such a wide spectrum of friends from so many countries. We shared our different cultures, ideas, food, beer, even politics, and learnt about the world. I’m pleased to say I’m still close friends with several of my teammates from those days, including Derek Sandison, (a tech entrepreneur) Andrew Sookrah, (one of Canada’s leading landscape artists) Alan Brahmst (a four-time Canadian Olympian, field hockey player) and my Nova Scotian “Stan Rogers loving” buddy Mike Haley.

My good friend, Mike Haley, and I looking positively miserable after England lost to South Africa, 13 v 27, in a rugby International played at Twickenham Stadium, England, Dec 2022.

Mike and I hit it off the moment we met as he had a great sense of humor and had played hockey for “The Fighting Haddocks” in Nova Scotia, a name I found positively Monty Python-esque at the time. He had arrived in Toronto around the same time as I had, having graduated as an engineer from Dalhousie University.

Mike told me that Stan Rogers’ music and lyrics were a heartfelt appreciation of the beauty of eastern Canada and its people.

We spent a lot of time together in those early years both on and off the pitch playing and socializing, and he gave me a copy of Stan’s “Fogarty’s Cove” album for my birthday. It was a definite change of pace to the music I was listening to at the time, such as the Eagles, Phil Collins, Queen, Genesis, Steve Winwood, Peter Gabriel, Fleetwood Mac etc, but I found Rogers’ deep voice very compelling. And I loved his lyrics which told stories of struggle and the maritime fishing life.

I’m pleased to say that some forty years later, Sarah has even become a devotee of Stan. From the day we first arrived in Nova Scotia, Stan’s voice has been our companion as we have navigated our new life as “Bluenosers!” From driving the Cabot Trail to road trips to Annapolis Royal, Pugwash, Wolfville and down the south shore, the unique timbre of his voice accompanying us on all our adventures.

Surprisingly, Stan Rogers was born in Hamilton, Ontario - not in Nova Scotia as many believe. He was the eldest son of Nathan Allison Rogers and Valerie (née Bushell) Rogers, Maritimers who had relocated to Ontario in search of work shortly after their marriage in July 1948. Stan was born in 1949.

A wonderful interview with Stan Rogers, and singing his hit “Make And Break Harbour”.

Although raised in Binbrook, Ontario, he often spent his summers visiting family in Guysborough County, Nova Scotia, which is where his musical influence originated. Interested in music from an early age, he received his first guitar, a miniature hand-built one by his uncle Lee Bushell, when he was five years of age.

While Rogers was attending Saltfleet High School, in Stoney Creek, Ontario, he met other young people interested in folk music. After high school, he briefly attended both McMaster and Trent Universities, where he performed in small venues with other student musicians. He signed his first record deal with RCA Records in 1970, and recorded two singles. It wasn’t until 1976 that Rogers recorded his debut album, Fogarty's Cove, (the album Mike gave me) which was released in 1977. The album, which had a Celtic feel, was an immediate success. Frequently inspired by Canadian history and the lives of working class people, his songs tell of the fishing villages of Nova Scotia, farms of the Canadian Prairies and the Great Lakes.

A photograph of the fated Air Canada plane in Cincinnati where Stan Roger’s died.

Tragically, Rogers died at the tender age of 33, in a fire aboard Air Canada Flight 797 on the ground at the Greater Cincinnati Airport on June 2, 1983. He had performed at Kerrville Folk Festival in the United States and was on a flight home to Toronto. Twenty-two other passengers died on the same plane from smoke inhalation.

Reportedly, the fire had no visible flames, and after attempts to extinguish the fire were unsuccessful, smoke filled the cabin. Upon landing, the plane's doors were opened, allowing the five crew and 18 of the 41 passengers to escape, but approximately 90 seconds into the evacuation, the oxygen rushing in from outside caused a flash fire.

The accident was widely publicized, and is the reason why all modern airliners are now required to have smoke detectors, floor-level emergency lighting, and emergency evacuation plans communicated to the passengers.

It doesn’t seem possible that only a year after my arrival in Canada this talented young musician - only 12 years older than I was at the time - was gone.

But the strange - and beautiful - thing is, his voice sounds like that of an old, wizened man who had had a long life with many experiences, good and bad. I have always marveled at that.

His storybook ballads are limited to the few albums he made, but to me at least those songs have become ever richer and stronger with the knowledge of his brief life.

Stan Rogers recorded many great ballads but here are a few of my favorites “Jeannie C”, “45 Years”, “Barrett’s Privateers”, “Northwest Passage”, “Fogarty’s Cove” and White Squall” to name just a few.

Stan Rogers’ ashes are scattered off the northeastern shore of Nova Scotia. The Stan Rogers Folk Festival is held annually in Canso, on Chedabucto Bay. In 2011, Canada Post issued a commemorative Stan Rogers postage stamp, celebrating his musical legacy.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the story, life does have a funny way of coming full circle.

Sarah and I will be visiting my friend, Mike, and his wife, Wendy, at their cottage in Lockeport, in the next couple of weeks to enjoy some lobster and, I dare say, a few beers. The sweet gift of a 42 year old Canadian friendship!

We will no doubt be playing the soundtrack to all our Nova Scotian road trips, …“Stan the Man!”