Red River Valley

Canadian Prairies

One of the best known folk songs in the prairie provinces, many folklorists believe that it originated in North America in the mid-1800s during the time of cowboys and pioneers.

What appears to be a simple campfire song is, in reality, a musical mix that has its foundation in the melodies of traditional folk songs sung in the mists of a Gaelic past and whose lyrics were written in a personal expression of the cultural conflict occurring during the nineteenth-century settlement of the American continent by Europeans and the related displacement of the indigenous natives.

There are two significant Red River valleys on the North American Continent: The Red River Valley of the South and the Red River Valley of the North. And it is to this Red River Valley of the North that the origins of "Red River Valley" lead. The song held the form of a story about a Métis girl lamenting the departure of her white lover, a soldier who came west to suppress the Red River Rebellion of 1870.

The text for Edith Fowke's version of the song was discovered in the papers of a former Canadian Mounted Police officer, Col. Gilbert Sanders and published in 1964. The lyrics discovered by Edith Fowke:

The Red River Valley

From this valley they say you are going,

I shall miss your bright eyes and sweet smile,

For alas you take with the sunshine

That has brightened my pathway awhile.

Chorus:

Come and sit by my side if you love me,

Do not hasten to bid me adieu.

But remember the Red River Valley

And the girl who has loved you so true.

For this long, long time I have waited

For the words that you never would say,

But now my last hope has vanished

When they tell me you're going away.

When you go to your home by the ocean

May you never forget the sweet hours

That we spent in the Red River Valley

Or the vows we exchanged mid the bowers.

Will you think of the valley you're leaving?

Oh, how lonely and dreary 'twill be!

Will you think of the fond heart you're breaking

And be true to your promise to me.

The dark maiden's prayer for her lover

To the spirit that rules o'er the world

His pathway with sunshine may cover

Leave his grief to the Red River girl.

There could never be such a longing

In the heart of a white maiden's breast

As dwells in the heart you are breaking

With love for the boy who came west.

Part of Fowke’s anecdotal proof as to the origin of the song hinged on the use of the word "adieu" in the lyrics, a word not normally associated with cowboys of the southwestern plains.

The original manuscript for folk song Red River Valley.

There has been speculation, drawn from the descendants of the settlers in the area, that the song was sung by a Métis woman at a gathering to commemorate the military victory of the Hudson's Bay Company over Louis Riel. She was lamenting, in song, the departure of her soldier/lover from the Red River Valley after the victory.

The notes and musical composition of Red River Valley was reminiscent of several Gaelic songs. Gaelic songs were composed of notes that could be played on the bagpipe, the hornpipe or the violin, the traditional instruments. The typical song form was the ballad, which told a story in strophic or repeated musical strains.

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The score of Prairie folk song Red River Valley.

It was no surprise that the song, so mocking in both tune and lyrics, as well as so entertaining in the pleasantness of its melody, would be remembered and played again and again at the many musical gatherings of the two communities which eventually merged together. The Red River Settlement continued to grow to become the city of Winnipeg. Some of its people dispersed into other areas of Canada and the United States and they took the "Red River Valley" with them.

It is estimated that 50% of all Western Canadians have some Metis blood in their ancestry. "Red River Valley" is a song of the Metis struggle to survive and a celebration of their recognition as a distinct culture.

Sources

Nystrom, James J. "The true story of the song 'Red River Valley'." Manitoba History, no. 72, spring-summer 2013, pp. 25+. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A436543613/AONE?u=googlescholar&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=3bb127f8. Accessed 7 Oct. 2023.