Vive La Canadienne
Vive la Canadienne (Long live the Canadian girl) was the Canadian National Song in the nineteenth century until it was supplanted by O Canada. Like many Canadian and Québecois folksongs, its origin was likely European. In fact, the melody appeared as The Canadian/A French Air in Literary Garland, a mid-nineteenth century Montreal music magazine. Ethnomusicologist Marius Barbeau suggested the words were probably written by an oarsman as he plied the waters of old Quebec. More recently, at the start of the Second World War, the melody became the stirring official march of the Quebec based Royal 22nd Regiment, the Van Doos.
