In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas,
Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pré
Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched to the eastward,
Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks without number.
Dikes, that the hands of the farmers had raised with labour incessant,
Shut out the turbulent tides; but at stated seasons the flood-gates
Opened, and welcomed the sea to wander at will o'er the meadows.
West and south there were fields of flax, and orchards and corn-fields
Spreading afar and unfenced o'er the plain; and away to the northward
Blomidon rose, and the forests old, and aloft on the mountains
Sea-fogs pitched their tents, and mists from the mighty Atlantic
Looked on the happy valley, but ne'er from their station descended.
Excerpt from Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
With the haunting words of Longfellow's epic poem fresh in our minds -- that tragic tale of young lovers separated by the 1755 deportation the Acadians -- we turn the car toward Nova Scotia's north shore.
It takes us most of the south shore to get through Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie, reading aloud as we drove the narrow, forested highway from Halifax to Yarmouth. Like many, we first learned about the infamous expulsion that dispersed Canada's earliest French settlers across the continent by reading this classic in high school. But Longfellow's florid prose seems more relevant here than it did back then.
"Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers?" he laments. "Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed, scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er the ocean."
As melodramatic as any modern soap opera, the poem follows the ever-faithful Evangeline Bellefontaine as she searches in vain across North America for her beloved Gabriel Lajeunesse, only to end up becoming a nun who is reunited with her lover on his deathbed. The story is pure fiction, but it is based on a sad, and ultimately true, bit of early Canadian history known here as "The Deportation."
In 1755, more than 7,000 French settlers living in Acadie, who refused to swear allegiance to the British crown, were herded onto boats and sent into the hinterland.
Some settled in Quebec while others made it as far as Georgia and Louisiana (today's Cajuns are descendants of those early Acadians). Some returned to France and Belgium, while others literally spent years wandering without a home and perished along the way.
This strip of northern Nova Scotia -- now known as the Evangeline Trail -- is ground zero when it comes to the settlement of North America. The Acadians -- émigrés from northern France -- were the first Europeans to put down permanent roots north of the Gulf of Mexico, after explorers Samuel de Champlain and Sieur de Mons established the first "habitation" at Port Royal in 1605. So, like the betrothed Evangeline and Gabriel, Acadian families had lived here for 150 years when the new British governors renamed the region Nova Scotia and banished the French from their well-established homes.
This summer the descendants of those first Acadian pioneers will return to their ancestral lands for the Congrès Mondial Acadian 2004, a massive gathering of 100,000 Acadians from around the world. This is the third world congress for Acadians, but the first to be held outside Louisiana. With an academic conference designed to explore Acadian heritage and dozens of private reunions to foster Acadian family ties, events between July 31 and Aug. 15 will celebrate "the birthplace of L'Acadie" in settlements all along the Acadian shore.
While Longfellow was an American and Acadians ended up scattered along the U.S. coast from New England to New Orleans, this is very much a Canadian story.
The original Acadians settled in Nova Scotia and throughout this largely rural region of the province, and the Acadian presence is still palpable. From the rugged western coastline, dotted with tiny French-speaking villages, to national historic sites at Port Royal and Grand Pré, and the hundreds of kilometres of historic Acadian dikes that reclaimed the lush Annapolis Valley farmlands from the sea, the region from Yarmouth to Wolfville is still Acadian country.
In 1847, Longfellow described the "few Acadian peasants, whose fathers from exile wandered back to their native land to die in its bosom," living "along the shore of the mournful and misty Atlantic."
Their rich farmland dispersed among the English conquerors, the handful of Acadians who did struggle back to Nova Scotia after the historic expulsion ended up on this rocky, windswept shore now known as Clare. We pass a string of tiny clapboard communities and broad rugged beaches along Baie Sainte-Marie -- Port Maitland, Mavillette, Comeauville, Saulnierville -- each flying the tri-coloured Acadian flag with its bright yellow star.
At Church Point, Acadians come to research their roots at Université Sainte-Anne, the province's only French university. And each summer, students here recreate the traditional Evangeline tale in a musical drama, just like the maidens in Longfellow's poem, "still wearing their Norman caps and their kirtles of homespun," and "by the evening fire, repeat Evangeline's story."
Here, too, the towering 56-metre spire of St. Mary's Church (the largest wooden church in North America) dominates the landscape, and the graveyard is filled with the blackened headstones of early Acadian families -- names like Comeau, Dugas and LeBlanc carved into the lichen-covered markers.
We pull into Café Chez Christophe, a tiny cottage next to the road in Grosses Coques, and are treated to a truly Acadian experience, a meal of fricot, chowder and rappie pie. The latter is a dish unique to this tiny corner of the world -- finely grated potatoes baked with chunks of tender stewed chicken (or the local razor clams) into an oddly starchy, but comforting, pie. The motherly waitress discourages us from ordering such regional fare ("tourists don't usually like it," she warns), but I am here to explore Acadian culture and this is the real thing. Tucked into the old parlour, next to the wood stove, we chat with a group of Acadian women visiting from Quebec and slurp our fricot, a homey chicken soup filled with fat boiled dumplings, and chunky lobster and scallop chowder. This is exactly what you'll find along the Evangeline Trail -- people who can still trace their roots back hundreds of years to the earliest Acadian pioneers.
Past Digby, where both the renowned folk artist Maud Lewis and the local scallops are celebrated at midsummer festivals, the Evangeline Trail heads northeast into the historic community of Annapolis Royal. This small but vibrant town is the physical heart of early Nova Scotian (and Canadian) settlement, a microcosm of Canadian history with its French and English roots.
Forte Anne, Canada's oldest national historic site, sits at the centre of town, the whitewashed British officers quarters hidden behind the hillocks of its original earthen fortifications, and the cannons still aimed across the Annapolis River toward the French foe at Port Royal.
The Port Royal fort is a national historic site, too, but a distinctively French one -- a replica of the 1605 French "habitation," where costumed interpreters like Wayne Melanson, himself a tenth generation Acadian, describe the difficult lives of the fur traders who established the first European outpost here, and the families from northern France who followed them.
British and French troops battled over this remote patch of the New World for decades, but in the end, the Brits dominated. Today, Annapolis Royal is a national historic district with a distinctly British feel -- the streets are lined with stately Loyalist homes, some dating to the 1700s. The Annapolis Royal Historic Gardens are filled with a spectacular collection of rare roses and rhododendrons, but at the centre of these formal English gardens is a simple Acadian cottage, it's walls plastered with mud and roof thatched with elephant grass from the local salt marshes. A large plaque nearby lists dozens of family names from the 1671 Acadie census -- Bertrand, Blanchard, Dupont, Gaudet, Labatte, Martin, Morin, Richard and Vincent among them.
That evening we dine at the historic Garrison House Inn on thick slices of locally-smoked salmon, scallops with fiddlehead ferns, and rhubarb-and-strawberry pie, dishes as local and long-standing as Canada's oldest culinary club, Champlain's Order of Good Cheer. Later we join Alan Melanson (Wayne's Acadian twin and president of the local historical association) for a spooky lantern-lit hike through Garrison Cemetery, the country's oldest English graveyard, to learn more about the town's historic riches. "When I say I'm Acadian, it means I'm a descendant of early French settlers," explains Alan philosophically. "We got caught up in the middle of British and French wars -- seven times these lands changed hands and we stayed neutral. But in the end, the Acadians became the victims, because we refused to say we would bear arms against the French."
After Annapolis Royal, our driving tour of the Evangeline Trail takes us east along the Trans-Canada Highway, with detours into pretty towns such as Bear River and Hall's Harbour, where the Bay of Fundy's legendary tides rush in and out twice each day. In Bear River, artists and antique dealers now live and work in the historic homes that tower over the tidal river on tall wooden stilts. And in Hall's Harbour it's easy to see why hundreds of early Bluenose-style schooners were built here. The receding seas creating a convenient midday dry dock in the snug cove in the time it takes to enjoy a freshly-boiled lobster and a beer on the outdoor deck.
It's this amazing force of nature that the early Acadian settlers were so successful in taming. Their legacy of brilliantly engineered dykes still hold the world's highest tides back along the Minas Basin near Wolfville and historic Grand Pré, reclaiming rich tidal flats for farming. We took a walk out across the muddy red-clay flats at Cape Blomidan as the waters receded, only to see them roiling up against the eroded cliffs a few hours later.
Then we made the final drive to the Acadian homeland, the original site of the Acadian expulsion at Grand Pré. There are no half-timbered and thatched houses here -- they were destroyed by British troops in 1755 -- but this is the place where the original Acadian village that Longfellow describes in Evangeline once stood.
Beyond the big tour bus parking lots, the multi-media theatres and gift shops, there is a peaceful garden and a little stone church, a memorial to the events that happened here so long ago. Inside, the walls are hung with magnificent paintings, huge canvasses depicting the poignant story of Acadians forced from their homes and separated from their loved ones. Outside, a bronze statue of the young Evangeline recalls the devotion and determination of Longfellow's tragic heroine, and the story that personifies the Acadian struggle.
It's where Acadians will gather in August to revisit their roots and mark the 400th anniversary of the first French presence in Canada. And it's the perfect place to conclude an exploration of Evangeline's historic trail.
Pack your bags
GETTING THERE
Yarmouth, Digby or Halifax are the logical starting points for driving the Evangeline Trail. A high-speed ferry -- the Cat ( http://www.catferry.com) -- arrives in Yarmouth once daily from Bar Harbour, Me.; the Princess of Acadia has regular service between Saint John and Digby; or you can fly into Halifax International Airport. The trail parallels the Bay of Fundy coast along Route 101, passing through the Acadian Shore, Digby, Annapolis Royal, Wolfville and Grand Pré.
WHERE TO STAY AND EAT
The Pines Resort: Digby; 1-800-667-4637; http://www.signatureresorts.com. A historic resort with a lodge and comfortable cottages.
Garrison House Inn: Annapolis Royal; 1-866-532-5750; garrisonhouse.ca. Across the road from Forte Anne, this lovely heritage home has 19th-century antiques in its seven guest rooms. The dining here is superb.
Blomidon Inn: Wolfville; 1-800-565-2291; http://www.blomidoninn.com. Stay and dine in a famous sea captain's Victorian mansion.
For authentic, home-style Acadian cuisine, stop at Chez Cristophe in Grosses Coques in Clare and order the rappie pie and fricot.
See the highest tides in the world in Hall's Harbour and pick out a lobster to devour at the Lobster Pound (hallsharbourlobster.ns.ca).
En route to the historic site at Grand Pré, stop for chowder and butterscotch pie at the Evangeline Tea Room at the crossroads to the park.
ACADIAN ATTRACTIONS
To explore the Acadian area of Nova Scotia, start by visiting the website at http://www.evangelinetrail.com. See the Evangeline story recreated in a sunset play along the beach at Church Point (evangelinetheplay.com). In Annapolis Royal, join a costumed interpreter from the local historical association for walking tours of the town or Candlelight Graveyard Tours. In 2005, Port Royal will celebrate its 400th anniversary with events all year long. And Grand Pré National Historic Site hosts the closing mass and ceremonies of the World Acadian Congress on Aug. 15. Fête Grand-Pré, a two-week festival, coinciding with the Acadian Congress July 31-Aug. 15, will feature food, entertainment and the works of local artisans. For more information, visit http://www.grandprefete2004.com.
To learn more about the historic sites at Grand Pré, Port Royal and Fort Anne, visit parkscanada.gc.ca.
For details about the Congrés Mondial Acadian 2004 or to explore your Acadian roots, visit cma2004.com.