I have a couple of Canadian friends from college and I was chatting with them recently when somehow this topic came up. Apparently somehow the notion has worked its way into the Canadian education system that the famous burning of the White House during the War of 1812 was perpetrated by Canadians, and that this is a cheeky source of pride for them (not that I begrudge them that, given how unimportant the war seems to all the countries involved with the passage of time).
But I'm curious if anyone could shed light on the historiography here or how the misattribution came to be? Everything I've read suggests that the troops that marched on Washington and subsequently burned the White House were British regulars fresh from the Peninsular War in Europe, supplemented by an additional contingent from the British West Indies.
And to clarify, I'm not talking about some sort of confusion of what counts as "Canadian" in this context, like saying that "Canada was still a British colony so technically that counts as Canadians doing the deed" (which would still be inaccurate, but more understandable). I mean they literally believe that like a force of Canadian soldiers from Canada marched on Washington and burned the White House, an idea which even a cursory understanding of the strategic theaters of the war would immediately expose as ludicrous.
Really good question!
There is a persistent myth within Canadian history and the Canadian psyche known as the "militia myth". This is the idea, especially associated with the War of 1812 that Canada is a nation of citizen soldiers who can take up arms when needed and are excellent soldiers, but in general we are not a militaristic people. This myth can be traced back to the War of 1812, which is often characterized as Canadian militia and Native allies repelling American aggression while Britain was off fighting Napoleon. While there are grains of truth to this theory in general, with the War of 1812 it is very clearly false: British regulars were responsible for the majority of the fighting during the conflict, including the infamous attack on Washington.
This myth was partially exacerbated by the government's ad campaign that promoted a highly Romanticized version of the War of 1812 for the bicentenary in 2012. Personalities such as Laura Secord, Sir Isaac Brock, and Tecumseh give the War a nationalistic, underdog kind of tone. The war is, in my opinion, somewhat overemphasized in Canadian historiography.
P.S. Anglo-Canadian forces actually had annexed Maine as a result of the conflict, but when the Treaty of Ghent (1814) was signed Britain was anxious to make peace -- the nation was war-weary after decades of fighting France -- and so went for a return to the status quo rather than pushing their claims.
Source: Desmond Morton, A Military History of Canada (2007)
This is a modern myth, not associated with the United Empire Loyalists, late 19th century Canadian imperialists, or the militia myth from the same time.
I searched through Google Books and Google Scholar looking for references to burning the White House. Admittedly, the search corpus is not complete but it allows for a comprehensive search of sources from the 19th and 20th century. I looked for terms like "burned the White House" Canada; "burned by Canadians" "White House"; "burnt by Canadians"; "burnt by the Canadians"; etc.
All of these results suggest that works identified the British as having burned down the White House, at least until more recently (last 20 years). Then you start seeing a few references to "British and Canadian Forces," and occasionally the incorrect statement that Canadians burned it down.
The other answer here is incorrect. First, Desmond Morton's A Military History of Canada makes no reference to the burning of the White House. It does mention the militia myth, but identifies its origins in the last half of the 19th century. Carl Berger's The Sense of Power discusses Canadian imperialism from 1867-1914. Berger writes that the War of 1812 was originally celebrated by Upper Canadians (Ontario, and usually by Loyalist-descended elites) through the victory of Isaac Brock at Queenston Heights. Later in the 19th century after Canada was formed in 1867, the myth of the Canadian militia during the War of 1812 was propagated by Canadian Imperialists. This myth focused on the burden of defending Canada from the Americans, and how that responsibility fell onto the shoulders of Canadian militiamen rather than British redcoats.
The Imperialists emphasized their vision of a united Canadian nationality, in line with their British past rather than the Americans, where French and English Canadians together fought the American meance. It also highlighted Canada sharing the burden of imperial defence - which in the late 19th and early 20th century was an important political aspect of these myths. Thus, the Burning of the White House was not significant for their mythologization of 1812. The War of 1812 was all about the defence of Canada and the defeat of Americans on Canadian soil by a "united" Canada that included French and English.
So where did this myth originate?
This part is a bit more difficult. For all I know, it has been passed from teacher to student in Canadian classrooms for decades but never put down on paper by historians and writers because it's wrong. From my quick and dirty research I talked about above, it seems like it is a claim that has only recently become popular. That finding makes me think the myth is a modern one. In 1991, the Canadian band Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie released their song The War of 1812, which was later covered by the better known Arrogant Worms. Given the release of this song coincides with the popularization of the "myth" that Canadians burned down the White House, I wonder if it might have shaped the knowledge of those who forgot their history classes.