Wilmot MacDonald, Storyteller
Wilmot MacDonald was raised in Glenwood, NB, one of ten children. He grew up in a musical household, with two fine singers for parents. He favored the songs of his father from the lumbercamp tradition, and he learned many songs while working in the woods from the age of fourteen until shortly after he married. He worked as a well-driller, fireman engineer, and ran a boiler at Chatham Air Force Base until he retired around 1970. He was for many years the star of the Miramichi Folksong Festival, opening the festival many times with “The Lumberman’s Alphabet.” He was a favorite singer and storyteller, and good friend, of both Sandy Ives and Louise Manny, who founded the Miramichi Folksong Festival.