Je reviens au berceau de l’Acadie Photos from Congrès mondial acadien 2004 Bill Cork

I awoke from a nap on the plane just in time to look out the window and see a gorgeous view of the Annapolis River valley, with Annapolis Royal, Belleisle, and everything in between in clear view. It was August 11, the feast of St. Clare, and I was back home in Acadie.

After landing in Halifax I rented a car and drove along the South Shore towards Yarmouth, where I would be spending the next few days with one of my wife's distant cousins, with whom I've been exchanging genealogy info for a couple of years, and who I had met a year ago at the Longard family reunion in Lunenberg. Along the way, I also stopped in Bridgewater for dinner with another of her cousins.

August 12 was a beautiful day, and I drove down to West Pubnico.

Ste-Anne-du-Ruisseau	Reconstructed 1784 chapel at Rocco Point.	Le Village historique acadien de la Nouvelle-Écosse in West Pubnico	Sieur Philippe Mius d'Entremont, founder of Pubnico (1653)--and one of my ancestors.	Making lobster traps.	Making nets for lobster traps.	Looking out into the harbor.	View of the village.
Detail.	Sign for St. Pierre church, West Pubnico	St. Pierre.	Musée Acadien and Archives. After touring the museum, I spent a couple of hours doing research.	Acadian millstone.	Fishing boats at Dennis Point in Pubnico, across the street from the Dennis Point Cafe, where I had my first rappie pie and some seafood chowder.	Went back to Yarmouth for a walk around the town. This is a triptych by an Acadian artist at the Yarmouth County Museum.	Dinner that evening with my hosts at a Bavarian restaurant near Yarmouth.
August 13 A long drive today to Grand Pre, via Annapolis Royal.	Sinclair Inn in Annapolis Royal; built 1710, the only surviving pre-deportation building in town.	Lighthouse in Annapolis Royal.	Fort Anne. Some employees were striking at the entrance. One had a sign, "No Respect." He was yards from the cemetery where both Brits (in marked graves) and Acadians (unmarked) are buried. Respect indeed.	View from the fort overlooking land that belonged to Abraham Dugas.	Monument to the Sieur de Monts, founder of Acadie 400 years ago.	Detail of relief.	Detail of inscription.
Melanson Settlement National Historic Site. I'm descended from both Charles (who lived here) and Pierre (who moved on to found Grand Pre).		This marker was erected earlier in the Congrès.	Detail of plaque.				I'm not sure what this is, but this is where the path led, and this was marked by sticks with red flags.
Belle Isle Hall, dedicated now to the Savoie family, whose nearby settlement has also been excavated. Deb was preparing for breakfast for 1000 members of the Savoie family--and she had just been told they were coming. She shrugged her shoulders and said, "They're family. What can you do?"	New visitor center at Grand Pre, opened since my trip last year.	New England Acadians listen to Lucie LeBlanc Consentino talk about our New England Acadian heritage. I can't wait for Lucie to post this info on her webpage. My design for a New England Acadian flag was warmly received.	Lucie and friend.	Display on dike construction; detail of aboiteaux. Also in the room, some archaeology exhibits.	Panoramic photos of Acadie at Grand Pre. This was surrounding the field to the left of the center; the field beyond it was set up for the mass and closing ceremonies to be held August 15.	I love this building, built on the site (supposedly) of St-Charles-des-Mines, the parish church of Grand Pre. I took a number of photos of it, as you can see.
	Excavations by Memorial Church.	Stained glass window from within.	400-year-old willows planted by our ancestors.			I went on the Acadian Cross tour. A CBC reporter went along; here he's miking our guide.	"Long Island"--was an island; Acadian dikes turned it into a mere rise in the landscape.
The Deportation Cross, erected in 1924.	Looking over what was a tidal stream.	Remnants of a wharf?	Explanatory note.	Further on, beyond the dike.
Author Bill Gerrior, with whom I had a nice visit.	I then headed toward Belliveau Cove, where there was pre-registration for the LeBlanc Reunion the next day.	Church of St. Bernard.	It started to rain in Belliveau Cove, and I began looking for a place to eat. I stopped at Au Havre du Capitaine in Meteghan River. They told me there would be a wait, but I wasn't in a hurry. Two kids (about 10 and 13) played Celtic and Acadian tunes on fiddle and electric base (and were quite good). I struck up a conversation with the folks next to me on the couch, Alfred and Pat from Moncton--Pat's also a Firmin descendant. They invited me to join them at their table when we were seated, and we had a pleasant couple of hours together. (I had the rappie pie again--this had molasses in it).
August 14 was the day of the LeBlanc reunion at Université Sainte-Anne in Point de l'Eglise .	We began with mass inside St. Marie's church at Point de l'Eglise. Sitting near me were two Firmin descendants; the man on the left is a fellow descendant of Jean dit Bis à Firmin.	Alfred and Pat from Moncton, with whom I had dinner the night before; Pat's also a Firmin descendant.	A few cousins getting to know one another at the LeBlanc reunion.	Lucie about to be introduced to give a talk on Acadian history.	Some in the audience take their Acadian history seriously,.	Lucie at the lectern.	Shopping, eating, talking .... I had the rappie pie. Again. The Cajuns all spoke of how bland Acadian food is. But I'm from New England, and the food was very similar--and this, not jambalaya, is what my LeBlanc ancestors would have eaten.
With a group of LeBlancs from Moncton; all are Firmin descendants except Paul (second from right), who I met at the 1999 reunion; Michael, to the right of me, is a fellow descendant of Jean à Firmin.	Waiting to hear Stephen White tell family tales. He followed the odyssey of Marie-Blanch LeBlanc, who was deported by the Brits not once, but four times. He offered her as a more apporpriate Acadienne heroine than the fictional Evangeline.	Some of Stephen's charts from the 1994 reunion were posted on the gym walls.	Stephen then patiently answered lots of questions.	A choir concert ended the day.	St. Marie in the fog. I took a picture from the other angle, and some local folks suggested that I'd get a better view from this side. They were right.	Across the street.	I went to the Evangeline musical (thanks to a ticket Lucie gave me!), and there met some folks from Texas--including Nicole LeBlanc from Dallas, who had e-mailed me after finding my page. We went out to the Clare Social Club for the evening concert.
August 15--Feast of the Assumption, la fête nationale de l'Acadie. Sunrise at Annapolis Royal, looking west from the tidal power generating station.	At Grand Pre, a young archaeologist shows a nail he just uncovered.	DL Menard and friends from Erath, LA, survey the crowd. I found Pat and Alfred again, and sat with them for the mass and closing ceremony. Alfred pointed out the Archbishop of Moncton to me as he worked his way through the crowd, and I went over for a visit.	Representatives of Acadian families gathered early at the beach and walked to the Church, symbolically reversing the Deportation.	The LeBlancs return to Grand Pre.	A stirring moment: all stand to sing Ave Maris Stella.	Acadian pride on display.	The Prime Minister of Canada, Paul Martin.

After mass, I drove to Upper Tantallon, to stay my last two nights with my wife's aunts. I took a nap, and just as I was heading out the door for the concert in Halifax one of Joy's cousins arrived from Newfoundland (they were expected the next day). We had a brief visit, then I went on. I didn't take my camera. The concert was on the grounds of the Citadel, the massive British fortress overlooking the harbor. Today, a giant Acadian flag flew over its ramparts. 10,000 Acadians sat on its flanks, waving the tricolor. I found some friends from Erath, and sat with them. Various groups were playing on a side stage before the main concert, and when a Cajun group took the stage, someone took D.L. Menard (who was with us) over, and it wasn't long before he was pulled onto the stage to join them in "La Porte d'en Arrière." Another group came after them, but had to quit when drowned out by the arrival of the Tintamarre, a noise parade led by drummers, with people blowing horns (and the crowd joining in) and folks with large paper-mache heads.

The folks from Louisiana had to leave early because they were on a tour, and the bus driver told them they had to be on the bus at 8:30--even though the concert proper didn't begin until 9:00. I got to know the folks on both sides of me. One, a Bourque from Amherst, NS, told me how her father had to change the spelling of the family name to Burk to get a job. On the otherside, a woman and her son from Lake Charles, Louisiana; he's a freshman at McNeese State.

The concert began with a circle of Mi'kmaq drummers; the beat they established transitioned into Zachary Richard's "Réveille," in which he was joined gradually by the other members of the evening's concert. It was an unforgettable--folks discussing it on the radio the next day kept using the word, "extraordinaire." It was. I'm in love with Edith Butler! It just took a simple rendition of "Le grain de mil." Several singers joined in "L'hymne à l'espoir." I had heard Lennie Gallant's "Ouvrez les Aboiteaux" on the radio--we were standing and waving flags as he sang it. Of course we heard Grand Derangement sing "Je reviens au berceau de l’Acadie" (which was also on the radio all this week). The two hours went by quickly--and stopped abruptly at 11:00 for the sake of the TV network. Then the clouds opened up, and we all ran for our cars.

August 16 was a day to relax. Breakfast with Joy's aunt and cousin and her husband, then a drive into Halifax. I wanted to revisit the archaeology exhibit at the museum on the digs at Belleisle, then I wandered around the waterfront. I found an amazing used bookstore, with a large selection of Acadian history.  I bought about $100 worth. I stopped at Peggy's Cove on the way back and spent about an hour before returning to Upper Tantallon for supper and a quiet night of conversation and watching the Olympics.

August 17 was travel home with many other Acadians, with whom I struck up conversations in the airport and on the plane. It was a thrilling two weeks. Only five more years until Caraquet!
 

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