In the first part of our second episode, we examine the traditional Acadian song “La Complainte de Louisbourg”, or “Louisbourg’s Lament”, a song believed to have originated with an eye-witness to the 1745 Siege of Louisbourg.

Video credit:

– Songs of Nova Scotia – Producing Agency: National Film Board of Canada

Photo credit:

– McCord Museum, Montréal, Quebec

Music credit:

– Chansons Acadiennes De Pubnico et Grand-Etang, Helen Creighton Folklore Society

TRANSCRIPT

You’re listening to a recording made by the folklorist Helen Creighton on June 6, 1944 in St Joseph du Moine on Cape Breton Island. Although initially untitled, this song came to be known as “La Complainte de Louisbourg, or “Louisbourg’s Lament.” In our second episode of the series, we analyze the song and discuss the relevancy of the lyrics in regard to the fall of the Fortress of Louisbourg to the British.

Welcome to the Lost World of Cape Breton podcast series. In the spring of 1944, Canadian folklorist Helen Creighton arrived in Cape Breton Island on her ever expanding project to collect, document and preserve the traditional songs of Nova Scotia. Working under the sponsorship of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C, she began to catalogue the songs from the village of Chéticamp, a community that had been settled by Acadians following Le Grand Derangement of the 1750s and 60s.    

The Man you hear at the beginning of this podcast is Tom Doucet. Helen Creighton sat down with him in the spring of 1944 and he sang for her some of his repertoire of Acadian ballads and milling songs.

Mary Helen Creighton was born in 1899 in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. She was a prominent Canadian folklorist, collecting over 4,000 traditional songs and stories spanning several decades. She also published many books and articles on Nova Scotia folksongs and folklore, receiving numerous. honorary degrees for her work. She was also made a member of the order of Canada in 1976. She travelled all across Nova Scotia and beyond collecting her songs and stories. Here she is arriving at the home of Peter Chiasson at Grand Étang, on Cape Breton Island. The equipment she used to record Peter Chiasson was loaned to her by the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Among the handful that he sang for her that day was an unnamed song that told the story of the siege of Louisbourg almost two hundred years prior. A few things quickly become apparent when listening to this song. Firstly, the lyrics are incredibly detailed. and contains descriptions of precise events and provides a kind of detailed inventory of supplies found within the Fortress of Louisbourg during the siege. It also appears to be known only by the Acadians from the region of Chéticamp. [END]