This week back in March of 1968, the biggest project in the history of Winnipeg was about to be completed.
Next to the Panama Canal, Winnipeg’s creation of the Red River Floodway was the biggest earth moving project the world had ever known. It was a design so big and so complex, it has been listed as one of the 16 greatest engineering achievements that shaped the world since biblical times.
The Winnipeg Floodway Gates in 1968
After six years and 2.75 billion cubic feet of earth being moved, “Duff’s Ditch” was ready to channel the high spring run-off of the Red River.
And like the slow rise of the Red, a song that had been released at the beginning of the year had slowly been rising and building momentum.
The song sounded a bit sad and lonely. But it also sounded lazy and carefree. It was a song that people were whistling, one of those tunes that you could hear just once, and remember the melody like you’ve heard it a thousand times.
And most of us have.
Otis Redding’s (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay was released exactly one month after a plane crash in Madison, Wisconsin took the life of the 26 yer old singer, who grew up in Georgia, but wrote his most famous song sitting on a rented houseboat in a marina located in Sausalito, a oceanside community located near San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.
The view Otis Redding saw of San Francisco Bay while writing “Sittin’ On” (The Dock Of The Bay)
He had recorded the song just three days before his death, with the song not quite finished. The whistling you hear Otis performing at the end of the record was improvised, as he and co-writer/producer Steve Cropper had not decided on what lyrics to use for the final verse.
That’s the way you hear the song today.
On March 16th 1968, (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay reached the top of the charts and stayed there for a month. It was the first time in Billboard history that a number one song was attained posthumously by an artist.
It was Redding’s first number one record. And his last.
A hundred years from now, Winnipeg will still be talking about flooding in the spring, and hoping the floodway can handle the run-off.
A hundred years from now they’ll still be whistlin’ that tune.
