A couple of hours drive from Halifax, NS—just outside of the picturesque village and historic site of Grand Pré National Historic Site in the Annapolis Valley—the great bluff of Blomidon Provincial Park extends into the bright blue water of the Minas Basin and blazes the rich red colour of Bay of Fundy mud. It was from this point that, in 1755, what came to be known as the “Great Expulsion” took place—when Nova Scotia’s English army sent the Acadian settlers packing to the Thirteen Colonies of the USA (to Virginia and the Carolinas, predominantly, though some made their way to French Louisiana and became “Cajuns” there).
In Nova Scotia, the Acadians had worked the land as farmers and were disinterested in the politics of the warring French and English, though each empire was making its claim to North America and was aggravated by the neutrality of this ingenious, settling tribe.
The Acadians made a fertile orchard and grain basket of this part of the southern province through the use of their famed system of aboiteaux—dikes with wooden gates or flaps (an example is on view at the Grand Pré Visitor Centre) that allowed outgoing freshwater rains to drain the rich and fertile alluvial soil of the Annapolis Valley of salt, but locked shut against the incoming seawater riding the Bay of Fundy’s famous high tides. What has been described by many historians as an early example of “ethnic cleansing” was their recompense for this hard work.
On Sept. 5, 1755, upon the orders of the British Governor Charles Lawrence, Colonel John Winslow issued the command for the expulsion, one he said was:
“… very disagreeable to my natural make and temper, as I know it must be grievous to you who are of the same species. But it is not my business to animadvert, but to obey such orders as I receive; and therefore without hesitation I shall deliver you His Majesty's orders and instructions, namely: That your lands and tenements, cattle of all kinds and live stock of all sorts are forfeited to the Crown with all your other effects, saving your money and household goods, and that you yourselves are to be removed from this his province.”
A simple monument and church in a park near Grand Pré commemorates what the Acadians themselves call le grand dérangement, an event remembered in poetry by the American Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who published his best-selling and still recited poem “Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie” in 1847. It fell to another, later author (and an actual Acadian) to tell the story of the exiled Acadians’ return.
The prolific Acadian novelist and playwright, Antonine Maillet, who lives in Montréal, QC, but was born in Bouctouche, NB, beautifully chronicled her people’s dispersal and slow journey home in her novel Pélagie-la-Charette, which won the Prix Goncourt in 1979. Still today, Acadian culture is mostly oral and rooted in the memory of a more mythical than real landscape—as “Acadie,” their Arcadia, was taken away from them and not recorded in subsequent maps.
The land that present-day Acadians have returned to—willingly, and after so many years in exile—was not the land they left: their farms had long been expropriated by the English. They settled new lands and in the forests, and in Nova Scotia they became fishers along the “French Shore” on St. Mary’s Bay. New Brunswick’s provincial capital (Fredericton) might have taken the name of the English Colonel who supervised the expulsion: Colonel Robert Monckton (the “k” was dropped due to a clerical error). Today, Moncton it is a thriving bilingual city where both French and Chiac, the Acadian dialect, can be heard on the streets.
From here to Grosses Coques, on Nova Scotia’s French Shore, Acadian music—that ranges from a sort of Canadian Zydeco to wonderful francophone country western—can be heard around kitchen stoves and in restaurants such as Restaurant Chez Christophe, while wonderfully fresh haddock, scallops, wild berry pie and rapûre (“rappie” pie), the local dish of chicken or clams and grated potato, can be had.
One can hear Chiac on the radio station CFZZ (104.1 FM from County Clare, NS) or watch the local hit YouTube videos of the satirical superhero “Acadieman,” who speaks Chiac and works at a call centre. The Frenchy’s and Guy’s Frenchys discount clothing stores are such a local phenomenon that Frenchy’s has a loving guidebook written about how to shop at its stores, plus an affectionate article about it by New Yorker writer and author Calvin Trillin.
Antonine Maillet, but also France Daigle and the incumbent Lieutenant-Governor of New Brunswick, Herménégilde Chiasson, are among the many poets and novelists who have spread the reputation of this extraordinary and welcoming Canadian community. So, too, are a panoply of musical talents—a score of bands, renowned soprano Susie LeBlanc, the rappers “Radio Radio” and the great pop music producer (of, among many bands, U2 and Bob Dylan) Daniel Lanois. And let’s not forget that Dieppe, outside of Moncton, NB, is where you can find the salon of the Academy Award-winnig hairstylist Paul Leblanc, the creator of Javier Bardem’s sinister page-boy ‘do in the Coen brothers’ film “No Country for Old Men.” Not so Acadia, a country for everybody—where there is a gamut of musical and cultural festivals throughout the summer to prove it.
http://novascotia.com
www.tourismnewbrunswick.ca
video
Le Pays De La Sagouine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yfqAJ6PJz8
Acadian Historical Village in Caraquet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx5LgNDQRFY
