The works of the Métis poet and songwriter Pierre FALCON were sung from coast to coast and sometimes accompanied on the violin – a Métis musical tradition with Scottish and Native American roots. They highlight some of the most memorable events in the history of Red River:

“Pierre Falcon, described by his descendants as an excitable and quick-moving man, had a poet’s feeling for words and a musician’s sense of rhythm, and he used them to put local incidents into songs. An armed clash between a party of mounted Métis under Cuthbert Grant* Jr and the Selkirk [Douglas*] settlers under Governor Robert Semple*, at Seven Oaks (in present-day Winnipeg) on 19 June 1816, was the subject of his best known song, ‘La Chanson de la Grenouillère.’...

“The bard’s songs were carried by the voyageurs from the St Lawrence to the Mackenzie, and Lake Falcon in Manitoba was named by them in his honour. His ballads were also sung by the Métis to the accompaniment of the fiddle around prairie camp fires.”

Read the following biographies to learn more about the arts and cultural life in the colony between 1812 and 1870.