This is one of those Girl Scout songs my kid sister sang to death; and now I know every word, whether I like it or not. Like most of the Girl Scout favorites we've collected (see crosslinks above), its origins are a puzzle. This one, though, does have an entry in the Traditional Ballad Index, with one songbook citation - it appears in Folk Songs of Canada (1954), by Edith Fulton Fowke (Literary Editor) and Richard Johnston (Music Editor). If somebody has that book, please let us know if we have Fowke's lyrics, and where she got the song from. I'm betting that the Fowke version is in the entry above that was taken from Barry Taylor's Canadian tunebook, http://members.shaw.ca/tunebook/birch.htm.
-Joe Offer-

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Here's the entry from the Traditional Ballad Index:

Land of the Silver Birch

DESCRIPTION: A pseudo-Indian ode to northern lands: "Land of the silver birch, home of the beaver, Where still the mighty moose wanders at will, Blue lake and rocky shore, I will return once more." The singer ends by promising to build a wigwam in the north
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1953
KEYWORDS: homesickness return nonballad
FOUND IN: Canada(Ont)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Fowke/Johnston, pp. 190-191, "Land of the Silver Birch" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #4550
Notes: For some reason, we learned this in elementary school in Minnesota. I can't imagine why. - RBW
File: FJ190

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The Ballad Index Copyright 2004 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.