After I published 5 Virtual Museums of Canadian History, someone sent me a link to Canadian Geographic’s Great Canadian Song Map. I didn’t have time to go through it while I was on the road, but I bookmarked it as something to return to. I wanted to research and share some of the histories held within these timeless Canadian songs. So here’s ten different songs from all across Canada, along with short descriptions of the stories they tell.
My Country ’Tis of Thy People You’re Dying - Buffy Sainte Marie (1966)
“Hear how the bargain was made for the West
With her shivering children in zero degrees
Blankets for your land, so the treaties attest
Oh well, blankets for land is a bargain indeed
And the blankets were those Uncle Sam had collected
From smallpox-diseased dying soldiers that day”
This song references a number of significant events in the colonization of North America, but I chose the smallpox blanket as one to point out in particular. In 1763, British leader Lord Amherst came up with the tactic to send smallpox into the First Nations who were rebelling against the British. Amherst wrote to Colonel Bouquet: “You will Do well to try to Innoculate [sic] the Indians by means of Blankets, as well as to try Every other method that can serve to Extirpate this Execrable Race.”
It’s been argued that Amherst was fighting to put down a rebellion, but those are not the words of warfare. Those are the words of genocide.
Acadian Driftwood - The Band (1975)
“Broke down along the coast, oh
What hurt the most
When the people there said
‘You better keep movin’ on’“
Acadia was a French colony established in 1605 that was gradually superseded by the British up until the end of the Seven Years War in 1763. This song follows the deportation of the Acadians in the Great Upheaval of the mid-1750s, in which 11,500 Acadians were deported to other British colonies, Europe and Louisiana, or fled to more remote parts of present-day Canada. Throughout the expulsion, Acadians and Indigenous allies led a guerilla war against the British. Thousands of Acadians died either in fighting or in the process of being deported.
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald - Gordon Lightfood (1976)
“The captain wired in he had water comin’ in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when ‘is lights went outta sight
came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”
The SS Edmund Fitzgerald was the largest freighter on the Great Lakes in her time. She vanished in 30-foot waves and huricane-force winds on the night of November 10, 1975, becoming the most famous victim to Lake Superior’s infamous ‘gales of November.’ According to the article that caught Gordon Lightfoot’s attention, Captain J.B. Cooper of the SS Arthur M. Anderson lost sight of the running lights of the Fitzgerald, and the next thing they knew the 729-foot ship was off the radar screen, never to be seen again. The story of the Edmund Fitzgerald pays homage to the many lives lost plying the Great Lakes throughout the years.
Northwest Passage - Stan Rogers (1981)
“Three centuries thereafter
I take passage overland
In the footsteps of brave Kelso
Where his ‘sea of flowers’ began”
Northwest Passage recounts several different Arctic explorers, primarily Sir John Franklin, whose ships became icebound in Victoria Strait in 1845. The lyric of Kelso and the ‘sea of flowers’ entranced me as a kid, however, probably because it made me picture an effeminate Ashton Kutcher.
Kelso refers to Henry ‘the Boy’ Kelsey, a Hudson Bay Company scout in western Canada. He was the first European on record to enter Saskatchewan and Alberta, surviving by adopting the traditions and relationships of local Indigenous peoples. The ‘sea of flowers’ lyric refers to a poem written by American poet William Cullen Bryant. For more information about the historical expeditions searching for the Northwest Passage, check out the Northwest Passage Wikipedia page.
Red River Rising - James Keelaghan (1989)
“Well, Thomas Scott he took the lead, we rode to Portage Town
Cory’s on the other side
Métis riders on our tail, it’s soon they rode us down
Cory’s on the other side”
Thomas Scott was a surveyor employed by the Canadian government who opposed the Red River Rebellion in 1869. In 1870, Scott and several volunteers tried to make it to Portage, but they passed too close to Fort Garry and Scott was captured and imprisoned by Louis Riel’s garrison. While in jail, he was brought in front of a military tribunal and was ultimately executed by firing squad. Scott’s execution made him a martyr in English-speaking Canada, and gave them a way to villify Riel and justify the marginalization of Métis peoples. It was following the execution of Scott that John A. MacDonald sent the Wolseley Expedition to put an end to the Red River Rebellion.
Wheat Kings - The Tragically Hip (1992)
“In his Zippo lighter he sees the killer’s face
Maybe it’s someone standing in a killer’s place
Twenty years for nothing, well, that’s nothing new
Besides, no one’s interested in something you didn’t do”
This song describes on of the most infamous wrongdoings in the Canadian criminal justice system, in which 17-year-old David Milgaard was wrongfully convicted for the rape and murder of Gail Miller. The Tragically Hip were approached by Milgaard’s sister to see if they would make an announcement at a concert to get signatures for a petition to the House of Commons, and they ended up writing this song. In 1992, twenty-two years after Milgaard went to jail, the Supreme Court held a new trial and his conviction was overturned.
An American Draft Dodger in Thunder Bay - Sam Roberts Band (2006)
“Going where I can’t be found
And I won’t be coming ‘round
No, I’m an American on the Canadian Shield
And I’m putting down roots in your frozen fields
It gets cold but you feel so good to be a stranger in a town and you’re understood”
About a quarter of the 2.5 million men who were deployed to the combat zone of the Vietnam War were draftees. Many young people in the 1960s avoided the draft for as long as they could. Folks songs like Draft Dodger Rag (1965) and Alice’s Restaurant (1967) used satire to circumvent laws against counselling evasion; antiwar psychiatrists and doctors provided evidence to defer conscription, pacifist churches protected missionary or ordained youth, and an active movement of draft resistance arose under the leadership of activist David Harris. This song describes the experience of an American who emigrated to Canada rather than face the draft, one of 20,000-30,000 Americans to do so.
Frank, AB - Rural Alberta Advantage (2008)
“And under the rubble
Of the mountain that tumbled
I’ll hold you forever”
On April 29, 1903, a massive rockslide buried part of the mining town of Frank and killed almost a hundred of the town’s residents. There were 20 miners working the night shift at the time of the disaster. Three of them were killed in the slide and the other 17 spent the entire day digging themselves out of the mine, only to emerge and find that many of their families had been killed in the town below. The Geological Survey of Canada later determined that mining activities, while not solely responsible, had contributed to the rockslide.
Labradorimiut (Sons of Labrador) - Gregoire Boys (2010)
“So listen while I tell and it makes my old heart swell
I’m proud to be a son of Labrador”
Labradorimiut is a Labrador Inuit word meaning ‘from Labrador.’ The video is a live performance by the Gregoire Boys accompanied by the Nain Drum Dancers at Innu Nikamu. Innu Nikamu, which means either ‘the Indian sings’ or ‘song in Indian,’ is an annual festival of traditional and contemporary Indigenous music in Québec. The festival emphasizes the power of music as a means of survival, through creative expression, inter-community celebration and solidarity.
Hurtin’ Albertan - Corb Lund (2014)
“A dually diesel pullin’ hard with a horse trailer in tow
Montana side of sweet grass and I’m headed home
Trophy buckles and whiskey bottles and a worn out saddle horn
Bareback riders and teamropers, huskin’ taber corn
The roads get better every time I cross north of forty-nine
Well I tip my hat and it’s good to be back across the medicine line”
This song isn’t a reference to history as much as it is a glimpse at the culture of Alberta today. In a 2015 interview in Macleans, Corb Lund said: “If the artist has an authentic enough voice, there’s a lot of common ground that transcends the specifics of the song. When I was a kid, I got Bruce Springsteen, but not because I know what it’s like to live in New Jersey. I could tell from the spirit of his music that he knew what he was talking about and was presenting something that was part of him.” I think that speaks to why I wanted to share this song.
Photo from Wikimedia Commons.