Marius Barbeau began collecting French-Canadian folk songs in the 1910s, traveling through Quebec, Ontario, and francophone communities to document oral traditions that were disappearing. From the 1920s to the 1940s he recorded thousands of songs, ballads, legends, and stories, becoming one of Canada’s most influential early folklorists. His work preserved entire repertoires of old French ballads, complaintes, rigodons, and cumulative songs, many of which survive today only through his field recordings and publications.