Bengal's Corner

Few countries possess a folk music as rich and culturally varied as Canada's. Traditional folk music of European origin has been present in Canada since the arrival of the first French and British settlers in the 16th and 17th centuries (see Folk Music, Anglo-Canadian; Folk music, Franco-Canadian). They fished the coastal waters and farmed the shores of what became Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and the St Lawrence River valley of Quebec. Men of the fur trade (and, later, the lumbering operations) brought much of this music further west and north into the forested areas of central Canada. The mingling of some of these men with various aboriginal tribes produced a population of non-Treaty Indians, known as Métis (eg, Pierre Falcon). more