"Red River Jig", also known as "La Grande Gigue Simple" ("The Great Single Step Dance"), "Gigue Simple", "La Grande Rouge" or "La Jig du Bas-Canada" is a French-Canadian reel in 3/4, or 6/4 and 3/2 time and D Major. The parts are played one part (Carlin), AA'BB' (Hart & Sandell), ABCD (Reiner & Anick) or ABCCD (Remon & Bouchard). It is often played in ADad or ADae fiddle tunings. This triple-time reel is probably the most popular and famous solo step-dance tune for virtuosic stepping in French-Canadian tradition, though it is in actuality not a jig ('gigue') but a reel. It is performed at a variety of tempos, depending on the taste of the fiddler or the step-dancer for whom it is played. Guy Bouchard states that the tune is made up of repetitive phrases, the melodic line is somewhat free-form and each fiddler seems to have his or her own version. Métis fiddlers from Manitoba play it under the title "Red River Jig" and there the tune is perhaps the most popular vehicle for step dancing. Anne Lederman (in her entry on "Fiddling" in the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada, 1992) states that this tune and its cognates were one of two important step-dance tunes in the repertoire of the 18th and 19th century fur-trade in Canada, along with the reel "Drops of Brandy". (unrelated to the "Irish slip-jig" of the same name). She suggests "La Grande Gigue Simple" (and cognates) may originally have been Scottish hornpipes in 6/4 time (i.e., 'Old' or 'Triple' Hornpipe time). Hart & Sandell (2001) note that fiddler Isidore Soucy recorded the tune on 78 RPM discs five times between 1927 and 1952. The "La Grande Rouge" title seems to be a regional Gaspe title for this tune and perhaps is associated with the Manitoba title through the word 'red' (rouge). The Red River of the North flows through Manitoba and the Métis lands and forms the border between North Dakota and Minnesota. It empties into Lake Winnipeg, whose waters join the Nelson River and ultimately flow into Hudson Bay. It was printed in Phillips' Traditional American Fiddle Tunes, vol. 1 (1994), Gibbons' Folk Fiddling in Canada (1981). It was recorded by Don Messer and His Islanders (45 RPM), Chirps Smith on Chirps Smith (2015), Andy De Jarlis on Fiddle Legends (2000), Léon Robert Goulet (1928) (78 RPM), A.J. Boulay (1930) (78 RPM) and Myllie Barron on Riding on a Handcar (2004).