But But But as I have previuously posted here somewhere it is a fact that when Gord sang this greart song at the 1969 Charlottetown,PEI Summer Festival (a concert recorded and broadcast on CBC-FM radio on October 5th 1969 he carefully and clearly introduced the song as follows
"we're gonna do a song about the heroine of Pig's Eye,... Minnesota"
No amount of searching reveals who this person was and when asked Gord was vague but it is another fact that:-
"The original name of the settlement that became St. Paul was Pig's Eye. Named for the French-Canadian whiskey trader,
Pierre "Pig's Eye" Parrant, who had led squatters to the settlement"
It was renamed St Pauls as being a more dignified name for what was to become the state capital
and "Pig's eye Landing was founded by a notorious, though popular, retired fur trapper whose talents had been turned to moonshining, Pierre "Pig's Eye" Parrant."
Another fact is that the famous American explorers Lewis and Clark were "accompanied by a crew of men, and later, the Shoshone Indian guide and interpreter Sacajawea (also spelled Sacagawea)"
and that 'most historians agree that Sacagawea married a French-Canadian fur trapper named Toussaint Charbonneau"
so just possibly Gord had read about both those facts on his 1968 song writing trip to England stories and that they became fused together in his mind when he wrote Bitter Green
John
P.S, found on my hard drive while searching for notes
http://www.pigdog.org/skunkschool.html
"Skunk School -- Learn Why Not To Keep Skunks As Pets"
which points out
"Skunks have a ground speed of nearly 85 miles per hour, close to that of the cheetah."
and
"The only recourse a skunk owner has is to build skunk traps baited with chocolate. Chocolate is an irresistible substance to skunks, and it is also a a deadly poison to them."
that fact enabled me to kill a pair of annoying and breeding skunks in our yard a while ago
ewwwww!!