My brother, Basil, and I have collaborated over the years, mainly on songs written specially for the weddings of our siblings, children, nieces and nephews. This one has its roots in a legend.
Lying in the shadows, a legend waits for the afternoon sun. On a summer evening, out of Mt. Hosmer’s face, comes the Ghostrider – the shadow of a distinctive horse and rider, the ghost some say of an angry Indian Chief and his jilted daughter pursuing William Fernie.
As legend tells it, William Fernie was courting an Indian Princess to learn the source of her sacred black stone necklace. It is said that after learning the secret location of the Morrissey Coal Seams, Fernie stopped seeing the Princess and the tribe’s medicine woman placed a curse on the Elk Valley.
Residents of Fernie feared the curse was real after several tragedies struck the town. Fire reduced the town to smoldering rubble in 1904 and again in 1908. In 1916, the Elk River flooded and in 1917 there was a mining disaster. A public ceremony in 1964 officially lifted the curse. Members of the Kootenay Tribes assembled in Fernie and Chief Red Eagle (Ambrose Gravelle) and Fernie Mayor James White smoked a pipe of peace.
Although the curse was lifted over 35 years ago, on summer evenings, the ghost of an angry Indian chief and his jilted daughter still rides above Fernie and their legend lives on in the shadows of the mountain.
from Ghost Rider
Kirsten Majic grew up in Fernie. Mt Hosmer and its Ghost Rider are framed in her living room window. When Basil and I were asked to compose a song in celebration of her marriage to David Fear, I took the legend as a motif for the lyrics.
