John Geiger, CEO of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, stands outside the organization’s Ottawa office on Wednesday wearing the newly purchased Monty Python Mountie costume.Ashley Fraser/The Globe and Mail
Monty Python’s absurdist tribute to Canadian tree fellers – the famed Lumberjack Song – is renowned across the world as a comedic classic.
Even real lumberjacks like to sing the lyrics: “I’m a lumberjack and I’m okay. I sleep all night. And I work all day.”
The sketch was initially aired in the first season of Monty Python’s Flying Circus in 1969, and reprised many times, including during a tour of Canada and the Pythons’ final performances together in 2014.
Now, the costumes they wore at their last shows in London have found a permanent home in Canada after the Royal Canadian Geographical Society successfully bid for them at auction in July.
Michael Palin’s plaid lumberjack shirt and the Mountie costume sported by Terry Gilliam will be displayed in a cabinet of curiosities along with the lyrics of the song, handwritten for the geographical society by Mr. Palin (who co-wrote the song), at its headquarters in Ottawa.
Using funds from a benefactor earmarked for acquisitions, the society successfully bid about $6,400 for the costumes at the auction, which included the infamous dead parrot.
“The Pythons are sick of paying for storage for this stuff and want to fill up someone else’s house,” the online auction site said.
In the first season of Monty Python’s Flying Circus (whose first episode was humorously entitled Wither Canada), Mr. Palin plays a bloodthirsty demon barber who declares he actually always aspired to be a lumberjack − and breaks into song.
In the 2014 rendition, Mr. Palin, at a career-development interview with an adviser played by John Cleese, admits he never really wanted to be a chartered accountant – but was interested in training as a lion tamer, or becoming a systems analyst. But after receiving a postcard from his aunt in Canada, he realized “the one thing I wanted to be was a lumberjack”
“Leaping from tree to tree! As they float down the mighty rivers of British Columbia, the giant redwood, the larch, the mighty Scots pine, with my best girl by my side, we’d sing, sing, sing” he declares, tearing off his suit to reveal his lumberjack costume underneath.
As a choir of red-suited Mounties (including Mr. Gilliam) assembles on stage, Mr. Palin breaks into song: “I cut down trees, I eat my lunch, I go to the lavatory. On Wednesdays I go shopping and have buttered scones for tea.”
Some of the song’s lyrics could be considered objectionable, referencing cross-dressing, for example, in a pejorative way. But more than half a century after it was first aired, many Canadians, including lumberjacks, still appreciate its ironic humour.
Rod Cumberland, a fourth-generation lumberjack from New Brunswick, said he finds it “quite hilarious.” The president of the Maritime Lumberjack Association said that when he meets someone for the first time, he has been known to say: “I’m a lumberjack … and I’m okay!”
At the annual lumberjack contest earlier in August in Ontario’s Mississagi Provincial Park, the anthem was played during the log-burling contest, where competitors battled to stay standing on logs floating in the water.
From left, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Neil Innes, Carol Cleveland, Terry Jones and Michael Palin take their bows for Not The Messiah (He’s A Very Naughty Boy), celebrating 40 years of Monty Python, at the Royal Albert Hall in London, U.K., in 2009.Dave M. Benett/Getty Images
Tex Chapman, who with his team “Tex in the Trees” came first overall, had a few notes on the practicality of Mr. Palin’s stage costume, however. Although the plaid shirt was something he could envisage wearing in the forest, as well as the suspenders (helpful to keep trousers up while up a tree), his pants were definitely “not chainsaw compliant.” He added: “We don’t wear dresses, no heels.”
John Geiger, the geographical society’s chief executive, said he wanted the costumes to come to Canada, including to allow Monty Python fans to view them, rather than being squirrelled away in a private collection overseas. He confessed that he has tried on Mr. Gilliam’s Mountie outfit and found it fits.
All the costumes were “specially designed. It’s not a real lumberjack shirt. It’s definitely a prop: It’s got Velcro instead of buttons, to be torn off very quickly as they change for the next skit.”
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The Pythons toured Canada in 1973 – which was aired on CBC – and their shows were received with uproarious applause in cities including Toronto – where the Pythons were greeted at the airport by hundreds of fans – and Winnipeg, where the entire front row dressed as a caterpillar. In Vancouver, the Pythons larked about during a TV interview promoting the show, which ended in a mock brawl.
Mr. Geiger said Mr. Palin had told him that the organizer of the tour had no sense of the geography of Canada or the distances between locations. The Pythons would arrive to do a show to find some of their props were still on the road.
In Calgary, the crew had to locate a dead-parrot prop hours before the curtain rose.
Mr. Geiger, who got to know Mr. Palin through their mutual interest in exploration, particularly of the Arctic, said the Pythons’ links with Canada run deep.
“They were huge in the U.K., and Canada was where they made their big international breakthrough.” The CBC was the first to broadcast the show in North America.
Mr. Palin is a Fellow of the geographical society and has received two society medals for his post-Python contribution to exploration and geographical endeavour.
In 2018, he gave a talk about his book on the Erebus, the ship that went down (and whose wreck was later discovered) during the doomed voyage to the Canadian Arctic of Sir John Franklin in his quest to find the Northwest Passage.
Mr. Geiger, who wrote an international bestseller about the Franklin expedition, had arranged for Mr. Palin to visit the region in the Arctic where the explorers disappeared.
Mr. Geiger has written to Mr. Palin telling him of the society’s successful bid for the lumberjack and Mountie costumes, telling him that he plans to display them in a room “where we will showcase Canadian cultural achievements with a focus on geography and exploration.”
“Nothing is more geographic than leaping from tree to tree,” Mr. Geiger quipped.
In his reply, Mr. Palin said, “I’m delighted to hear that my lumberjack shirt has found the perfect home,” adding that he hoped it had been washed as he got rather hot on stage.
“I shall tell Terry [Gilliam] that we have been united in a curiosity cabinet. Very suitable and much more interesting than a care home.”
