National Acadian Day

In 2017, Andrew and I rode bikes from Montreal to Quebec City, then down to Acadian National Park. During that trip, we learned all about Acadian history, the rich and fascinating story of a resilient and talented people. Then we forgot it all so we're learning it all again on this trip.

The Acadians came from France and settled the land First Nations people call Mi'kma'ki - today known as Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Maine - in 1605. Despite being settlers, they apparently got along quite nicely with the local Mi'kmaq. I was HIGHLY skeptical of this fact but I spent a good chunk of a car ride trying to find anything contradictory and I couldn't. To my best understanding, the Acadians were technically French (western French marshland folk, specifically) but politically abandoned by their government, which was more interested in colonizing and pillaging further inland, so they just made it work, trading with the Mi'kmaq and farming the local wetlands while the Mi'kmaq primarily fished and hunted. Then Great Britain decided to try to (re)claim the territory as their own and the Mi'kmaq and Acadians fought against the crown together, but eventually lost. During a time called the the Great Upheaval (1755-1864), England forcibly removed over 10,000 Acadians and killed a bunch of them too and, well, made no efforts to get along with the Mi'kmaq. When I was researching this, I found an article using the Acadian-Mi'kmaq relationship as a case study to show that it was possible for settlers and indigenous groups to actually live in harmony, but Great Britain fucked it all up as usual. Thousands and thousands of Acadians were deported all over the world - and many ended up in French-friendly Louisiana, where they once again saw some wetlands and were like, "oh, we can do this," and eventually came to be known as the Cajuns (from Acadiennes).

About 2,600 Acadians managed to stay in the area but overall it's a diasporic culture now. In 2003, the Canadian government officially recognized that the Acadians were treated badly and established National Acadian Day to celebrate and promote Acadian culture. Indigenous People's Day was established in Canada in 1996 and followed by a few statements of regret/apologies.

Anyway, we came to Clare, Nova Scotia for National Acadian Day because in addition to Cajun influence, Acadian music and fiddling was also influenced by Celtic fiddling (more on that later) so going to the oldest continuously running Acadian Day festival in Nova Scotia's only francophone county sounded like a cool thing to do, and here we are. Maybe this time we won't forget everything that I just told you. Here are some pictures of Acadian stuff on National Acadian Day in the land of the Acadians. It was pretty cool.Read more