“Let’s go rollin’, rolling, rolling the whole world ‘round
That fine gal of mine’s on the Georgia line
And we’ll roll the woodpile down
Hello, Centretown, my name’s Fletcher Gailey-Snell and I’m one of the members of the Bytown Sea Shanty Collective! Ottawa’s only sea shanty group.
Bytown Sea Shanty Collective is a group of four guys. We’ve known each other since high school, so almost a quarter of a century. And now we share the love of the sea and our love of all things East Coast and Nautical with Ottawa once a month at Beyond the Pale we do a free, accessible sea shanty night where we have no tickets, no cover, we just want people to come out and sing along with us, we put the lyrics up on the big screen. One of the big things we love to do throughout the year is fundraisers, and our big fundraiser coming up is for the Dalhousie Food Cupboard supporting Centretown West. We have an ambitious goal of raising $10,000 for them this Christmas time. So we started singing sea shanties as a group in public just over three years ago and we did it really because I couldn’t see another opportunity in Ottawa where there was an accessible space for people to sing in a group. There are so many great health benefits that come from singing together and we really embody that, especially with our accessible performances. We want you to come out and we want you to have a great time all together. We won’t be able to get to everything right now, but we’d love you to follow along with us and we’ll see you soon.”
