Happy Canada Day from Heritage Vancouver!

The Heritage Vancouver Society wishes everyone a happy Canada Day. To help celebrate in vintage air, we've digitised two Edison phonograph cylinder recordings, dating from 1909 and 1914:

 

The Maple Leaf Forever (1909 recording)

Listen! (mp3, 537k)

Recorded by the Knickerbocker Quartet by the Edison Phonograph Company in 1907, this is Canada's unofficial National Anthem.

The Maple Leaf Forever, written by Alexander Muir (1830-1906) in 1867, the year of Canada's Confederation.

 

O Canada (1914 recording, 1908 Weir lyrics)

Listen! (mp3, 553k)

This version, sung by Irving Gillette in 1914, was issued by the Edison Company in the same year, on an Edison Blue Amberol record (record number 2287). The original 1908 lyrics are sung.

It's interesting to note that Vancouver has a connection to another version of lyrics for O Canada, the Buchan version, and the story can be read here: www.vancouverhistory.ca/archives_ocanada.htm. The 1897 Buchan house still exists in Vancouver's West End, at 1114 Barclay, saved from demolition in 1995, then fully restored and aptly known as "O Canada House".

Oh Canada, composed by Calixa Lavallée (1842-1891) with the 1908 English lyrics by Robert Stanley Weir.

Lyrics in this recording:

O Canada, where pines and maples grow,
Great prairies spread and lordly rivers flow.
Thou art the land, O Canada,
From East to Western sea,
The land of hope for all who toil,
The land of liberty.

O Canada, O Canada,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.