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Vrbo, the vacation rental marketplace, likely did not expect the uproar it caused when it used the iconic Newfoundland folk song “I’se the B’y” in its 2024 Super Bowl ad. The commercial features a group of people arriving at a barn overrun by pigs and chickens as the jig gradually speeds up to a manic chipmunk tempo. There are no typical Newfoundland and Labrador visuals, and the lyrics featured make no direct reference to the province. But many people, including Deborah Bourden, who chaired the province’s tourism association, Hospitality NL, urged Vrbo to take the ad down, “given the importance of this song to us.”

Whether the ruckus was an overreaction or not, Bourden wasn’t wrong when she identified the tune’s significance to local culture. “Singing is part of the language here,” Alan Doyle explains in The Smiling Land. “If you want to learn about Newfoundland and Labrador, just listen to twenty folk songs from here and you’ll get a pretty good picture.�...