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Ye men that works down in this cave,
Your courage must be more than brave,
To work a mine beneath the wave;
Wabana you're a corker.
With your oil flash strapped up to your side,
And on your back a miner's pride,
And bold John Davis for your guide;
Wabana you're a corker.
Down in those dark and weary deeps,
Where the drills do hum and the rats do squeak,
Day after day, week after week;
Wabana you're a corker.
The boss will show you to your room,
With a lighted lamp will show a gloom,
And perhaps those walls will be your tomb;
Wabana you're a corker.
John Fred Squires, he repairs the drills,
When he gets them ready, he'll send them in,
If she don't work now she never will;
Wabana you're a corker.
The driller, he jacks up his bar,
Between the rib and a loaded car,
Where all those miss'd exploders are;
Wabana you're a corker.
Come now, boys, and look alive,
Another pair of slices drive,
And don't come up till half past five;
Wabana you're a corker.
When you comes up by the drain,
Who will you meet but that McLean,
Saying, "I will cut your time again."
Wabana you're a corker.
I asked old Alfred for my time,
I knowed he couldn't write a line,
And Lockey was down in the mine;
Wabana you're a corker.
All the women on Bell Isle,
They sleeps in bed till half past nine,
And light's their fire with the batcher's oil;
Wabana you're a corker.
All the women joins a club,
To feed their pigs on the batcher's grub.
They feeds them in a ten pound tub;
Wabana you're a corker.
With one hello and a simple knock,
Get up old cook, it's six o'clock,
The water wagon is around the block;
Wabana you're a corker.
If you're living on the Green,
Every morning you'll get beans,
And at supper time again it's beans;
Wabana you're a corker.
John Fred Squires told Peter Neary he started working at the Wabana iron ore mine in 1910, and that his friend Mike Hibbs wrote most of this song.
Wabana - from the Abanaki word 'wabunaki' meaning 'morning land', or the place where the sun first rises; the name Thomas Cantley of the New Glasgow company christened the Bell Isle mine site in 1895; used in reference to Dominion Wabana Ore Limited, a subsidiary of Hawker Siddeley Canada Ltd.
