Introduction:
How many times in your life can you say - if ever - that an innately powerful poem has been written just for you?
Well, now the people of Trail can.
“This is the 17th poem I’ve written about Canada’s flower corvettes from the Second World War, and this poem is the deepest of them all,” Garth Paul Ukrainetz, Poet Laureate of the Blackmud Creek, shares.
“HMCS Trail has a story to tell the rest of Canada … and the world.”
Hero Trail
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By Garth Paul Ukrainetz
Poet Laureate of the Blackmud Creek
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Deep in the veins of West Kootenay
The Columbia river does flow
Where gold on the face of Red Mountain
Always smiles on the valley below
Where the trees slowly rise up to heaven
Anchored roots full of copper and zinc
On a path for a better tomorrow
Hero Trail with a smile and a wink
-
Quickly built in the fog of Vancouver
Strong of hull and her rivets were sound
Autumn launch in the leaves of October
T’was the last she would feel of the ground
Set her course for the Battle Atlantic
Early years of the 40’s were grim
For Hitler was being a tyrant
And the world was at war against him
-
Her mission, protecting the cargo
For England, supplies for the war
In the Gulf of St. Lawrence advancing
Hidden U-boats at Canada’s door
Always guarding and shielding the convoys
As they sailed along shores of Quebec
While they crossed the enormous Atlantic
Hero Trail keeping Hitler in check
-
The lads on the sonar are listening
Sneaky submarines hiding below
This hound dog is sniffing the ocean
With the depth charges ready to throw
In the boiler room hot as a smelter
As her steam engine pushes along
Every hand on the ship has a duty
In her belly the stokers belong
-
Hungry boys eat their fill in the mess deck
Then they throw the whole meal back to sea
For many a sailor was seasick
Oh, the ocean a cruel place to be
And the biscuits were harder than hockey pucks
Aye, to eat them the crew stood afraid
On the ice back astern cold and frozen
Games of hockey with biscuits were played
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The men missed their homes back in Canada
And their mom’s missed their boys out at sea
And their grandma’s knit scarves and warm mittens
For dear grandsons, warm heroes they’ll be
When a mail sack arrived they were joyous
Treasured envelopes valued like gold
They read and reread and reread them
To their hearts their dear letters they’d hold
-
At night they would sway in their hammocks
Gently dreaming of heaven on Earth
Where the mountains bring peace to the people
Where each person is equal in worth
And the stars up above them would listen
As the sailors would talk in their sleep
With the whales and the dolphins and sea turtles
Oh, the secrets the ocean does keep
-
And such were the days of their journey
In a world very shattered and broke
Trail hungered for peace and armistice
Like a smoke eater hungers for smoke
The boys keeping hope in the sunlight
By the moonlight of U-boat attacks
On the ocean of Atlas prevailing
With the weight of the war on their backs
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And when the world conflict came ending
When peace showed the way to agree
She sailed back to BC a champion
Kissed the face of Red Mountain with glee
Where the trees slowly rise up to heaven
Anchored roots full of copper and zinc
On a path for a better tomorrow
Hero Trail with a smile and a wink
-
2020 Garth Paul Ukrainetz
In celebration and remembrance of the
75th Anniversary of the end of the
Second World War
1945 - 2020
“Lest We Forget”
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Read more: Remembering a boy from Trail who went to war and never came home
Read more: Remembering HMCS Trail
Read more: Just for the Hull Of It campaign - HMCS Sackville
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