When Doug Taught Us That Bird Song

#481 / Flood Time Capsule: 2010 (Video Extra)

It was exactly 15 years ago tonight, at the end of a lively jam session at the Bowen House, that Doug Chaffin sat down to teach us all a beautiful, mysterious song called “Ook Pik Waltz.”

And fortunately, that moment was captured by a thoughtful old friend, Pam Hayes Williams, who was attending her first Flood gathering, along with classmate Zoe Brewer.

“We had a very nice jam session," Charlie Bowen told his cousin Kathy in an email the next morning. "We had a house full, including people I went to high school with 40 years ago.”

And when Doug Chaffin switched to Dave Ball's guitar to walk the musicians in the room through the new song, Pam quickly flipped on her phone and shot this video:

Click the “Play” button above to hear and see Doug teaching the guys this lovely song.

How Doug Learned the Song

Ook Pik” wasn’t exactly new to Doug Chaffin. He had learned it a dozen years earlier, when he played bass on J.P. Fraley's Side by Side twin fiddle album with Betty Vornbrock.

Over the decades, Doug played it on either guitar or mandolin, but by 2020 when he and the band came to Paul Martin’s recording studio to record the Speechless: The Instrumentals album, Doug had switched to fiddle, as demonstrated in the second half of the above video. Don’t miss it!

But What the Heck is the Song About?

Snowy owl is the translation of the Inuit word “Ookpik,” referring to a native bird of Alaska.

The late British Columbia fiddler Frankie Rodgers used the word for his title when he composed the piece back in 1965, and ever since then there has been magic in a melody that seems to somehow capture a stately dance of wings in a blue sky.

Rodgers, who died in 2009 at age 73, first recorded the song on his Maple Sugar, Fiddle Favorites by Canada's Old Time Fiddle King Frankie Rodgers album.

By the way, the Canadian Encyclopedia notes that “ookpik” also is the name of the most popular of Inuit handicrafts in the form of a souvenir sealskin owl, which features large heads and big Disney-like eyes.

In 1963, the doll was created at the Fort Chimo Eskimo Co-operative in Québec and quickly the cute fuzzy, stuffed Ookpik owl doll became a worldwide symbol for Canadian handicrafts.

More from Doug?

We continue to mourn the passing of Doug Chaffin, who died a year and a half ago, but he is still very much alive in spirit in our band room each week.

And whenever we need a Chaffin booster shot, we turn to the Doug Channel on the free Radio Floodango music streaming feature. Want to join us? Click here.