Joe. A look at TSNS shows the song under the original title "The Nova Scotia Song" as given by Helen Creighton. This is the earliest publishing that is known currently.

Also for the completists, the date of the collection of this song was Aug 4th, 1933.

The story given is that Helen Creighton, and probably Doreen Senior were going around collecting songs (remember this is 1933 before recording equipment). They had been planning to picnic, but a rainstorm happened. Mrs. Annie Greenough welcomed them in, and in the kitchen, with their feet drying in the wood stove's oven, they heard this song for the first time.

Cute.

Thanks for this DTStudy, Joe.