This is National Acadian Day in Canada. It is the occasion to remember a painful chapter in Canadian history and celebrate the survival of the culture and spirit of the Acadian people.
Acadians are the descendants of the 17th century French community in Canada that was known as Acadia. Following the British Conquest of Acadia in 1710, the community continued to live in the homes they’d built, farming on the land they’d cleared. Between 1755 and 1763, however, nearly 12,000 Acadians were deported, many settling in Louisiana in the southern United States, where they became known as the “Cajuns”. Those that survived and remain in Canada still live in the Maritime provinces they originally settled..
American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published his epic poem “Evangeline” in 1847. It was inspired by the events surrounding the deportations, that became knonw as the Acadian Expulsion.
This summer the American poem was produced as a Canadian musical. The story of Evangeline is the basis for the musical by Ted Dykstra, that made its debut in Prince Edward Island’s Confederation Theatre this summer.
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