The Nation of Acadia

I came here thinking that Acadia was a region of Canada but I've learned that it is much more.  Acadians first moved to the coastal regions of Canada from the southern part of France in the early 1600's.  They maintained their French language and customs in the New World and developed a culture of their own on top of that.  Four/five generations later, they were scattered to the far corners of the earth by the English in a series of deportations that separated families and deprived them of the beautiful farmlands they had developed in Nova Scotia.  A memorial to the tragedy of those deportations has been established in Grand Pre.  Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a poem, Evangeline, and brought the story of this tragic injustice to the attention of the world.  Although she is a fictional character, her story represents her people, and the road around the southwest corner of Nova Scotia is known as the Evangeline Trail.  Here you will see the Acadian flag flying beside the Canadian flag or by itself.  People speak French as their first language and trace their lineage back to the 17th century founding families.   They identify themselves as Acadians first, Canadians second.   Acadians and French Canadians are not the same.  On our trip on Tuesday down to Belliveau Cove, we stopped first at two tiny parks, then at the beautiful town of Wolfville for lunch, and finally at the historical site of Grand Pre.   We were in a hurry so didn't give it the time it deserved.  We got the idea, though.