Joseph Montferrand

Joseph "Jos" Montferrand (; born Joseph Favre ; October 25, 1802 – October 4, 1864) was a French-Canadian logger, strongman, and folk hero of the working man

At the age of 21, he joined the Hudson's Bay Company as a voyageur. In 1827, he began work as a logger on the Rivière du Nord in Lower Canada and then moved to the upper Ottawa River. The loggers felled trees over the winter, drove the logs down the river, and eventually arrived at Quebec City. Montferrand would also briefly have a stint in the United States, working for the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company in Manchester, New Hampshire. Montferrand spent the remainder of his working years in the lumber trade in the Outaouais. There was ongoing animosity between Anglophones and Francophones and frequent fights between English-, Irish-, and French-Canadian loggers. Montferrand's prowess with his fists and boots was legendary in avenging the wrongs to which he and his compatriots were subjected.

Montferrand defended French-Canadian workers against gangs of Irish immigrants known as "Shiners" in the Bytown area. After 1840, he mainly worked the log drives as foreman and retired in 1857. In his later years, he had back and joint pain. He died in Montreal in 1864, aged 61, and was interred at the Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery.

Legacy

Montferrand's legendary nickname, Big Joe Mufferaw (also sometimes spelled Muffero, Muffera, Muffraw), is believed to be a result of English speakers mispronouncing "Montferrand" phonetically. He was already a legitimate folk hero in his own time, but his reputation grew into the mythical hero when exaggerated tales were told about him. Like Paul Bunyan, he became the subject of many similar tall tales. Mufferaw is sometimes enlisted as a defender of oppressed French-Canadian loggers He is also the subject of a chapter in Joan Finnigan's 1981 book Giants of the Ottawa Valley and her 1983 book Look! The Land Is Growing Giants. Bernie Bedore of Arnprior also wrote several books that recount Joe's adventures.

A statue of Joe Mufferaw was erected outside the Mattawa Museum in Mattawa, Ontario, during the spring of 2005.

Montferrand was named a National Historic Person by the federal government in 2023.