Acadian Culture, Alive, Well and in New Brunswick, Canada
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"This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks..."
And so goes the epic, deeply moving poem, Evangeline, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
It's about the star-crossed romance of two Acadian lovers, Evangeline and Gabriel, lost to each other on their wedding day in the harsh deportation of the French Acadians from the Canadian Maritime provinces around 1755.
In what can only be called an early example of "ethnic cleansing,” the British forced the Acadians to watch as they burned their homes, their lands and destroyed their families, expelling the Acadians from their communities to foreign places.
Many were sent to New England; many fled to French-speaking Louisiana, where they became known as Cajuns.
But every year in an act of cultural affirmation, the Acadian communities of New Brunswick celebrate who they are and their rich, unique traditions with a massive celebration of song and dance.
It's a Canadian Maritime Mardi Gras (Acadian style) in mid-August, with foot stomping music, fantastic masks, poetry readings, parades, and lots of color.
The Festival Acadien is Acadian life, culture and pride on display throughout the Acadian Peninsula, the upper coastal reaches of New Brunswick.
You can feel it and see it as soon as you cross into Grande-Anse, a small community on the Chaleur Bay, a three or so hour ride from busy, cosmopolitan Moncton.
Suddenly the maple-leafed Canadian flag disappears replaced by the deep red, white and blue Acadian one with its gold star, the Stella Maris, the flag of the sea. The flag of Acadia.
It's on telephone poles, baby carriages.
It flutters from brightly colored fishing boats bobbing in small, working harbors.
The "Hello's" give way to musical "Bon Jours," and although New Brunswick is the only Maritime province that's officially bilingual (Quebec is officially French), in these towns, French is what travelers hear.
The town of Caraquet has maybe 4,500 people in it. It’s tucked into a cove, and like all the towns here, hugs the broad arc of coast that surrounds New Brunswick.
It's the designated center for the Acadian National celebrations.
The entire town is caught up with the week-long celebration, climaxing in the Tintamarre, the Acadian tradition of marching through communities with all kinds of improvised instruments from pots and pans to trumpets, buckets, bicycle bells, tin horns and whatever makes noise and brings laughter
Mask makers sculpt huge figures like the water dragon for the parade, held on August 15, the National Acadian Holiday affirming solidarity and vitality.
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