Violin Mont-Laurier, Quebec 1982 Maple, spruce, cedar 62 x 24 x 10 cm Canadian Museum of Civilization, Canada

While the violin is not an instrument indigenous to Canada, it nonetheless dates back to 1645 on the occasion of a wedding celebration in Quebec City where two fiddles appeared for the first time as recorded in E. B. O'Callaghan's Jesuit relations of discoveries and other occurrences in Canada and the northern and western states of the Union, 1632-1672. In the early 17th century, fiddles were the main instrument used for European folk dancing.

Although there are practically no written references, we might deduce that the instrument was also played at parties in New France: evening gatherings, dances and balls. The Hudson's Bay Company archives for 1749 tells us that three fidlders, "Geo. Millar, Willm. Murray and James Short", played for the assembled company to everyone's great enjoyment. Scottish Hudson's Bay Company employees brought a great many violins and a large repertoire of dance music with them when they crossed the Atlantic. Very soon, fur traders and coureurs des bois travelled across the country taking their fiddles with them.

The instrument became an integral part of traditional culture and accompaniment to oral literature. And indeed, fiddlers are more than just simple musicians. They are storytellers, "witnesses" of the ghost canoe and square dance callers. Reels and jigs date from this Scottish period while cotillions and quadrilles, traditions of French-Canadian colonists who were not directly connected with the fur trade, are said to be of French origin. This musical tradition had the advantage of uninterrupted development over the centuries and was enriched by successive waves of immigrants from the Old World. Reciprocal influences and many local variations have made an enormous contribution to the repertoire of this music over the generations.

By the end of the 20th century, we can trace back over some six generations of fiddlers with each one contributing a mix of old and new tunes associated with a particular dance style: French-Canadian in Quebec and Acadia; Aboriginal and Metis in the Northwest, Northern Ontario and Northern Quebec; Cape Breton; "down east" in the Maritimes, Ontario and further east (an amalgam of old Irish, English, Scottish and German traditions); Ukrainian, popular in many rural areas of the Prairies; and western. Basically, you can distinguish one style of playing from another by the way the bow is used. French-Canadian fiddlers are famous for tapping their feet, originally their only rhythmic accompaniment before the Jew's harp, spoons, button accordion and harmonica were added to the "orchestra".

As you can see from this history, the violin has been a pivotal instrument in the development of Canada's musical heritage. Until around 1960, fiddle music was the principal type of music in rural Canada.