It's been quite a journey thus far, digging a little deeper to our Acadian roots. We went from Cape Breton and its scenic wonder to Grand Pre, where a form of dyked-land agriculture unique to the Acadians is most evident in the landscape. It was at Grand Pre in 1755 that the deportations began, an event memorialised by Longfellow in his poem, "Evangeline". A cross now marks the site:
From there we proceeded to Port-Royal, on the Annapolis River. It was along this river, La Riviere au Dauphin, that the Pitre homestead appears in a 1708 census-taker's map. We figured out the exact placement of my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather Claude's farm. Now it's a cattle pasture and pheasant preserve, and the land is being sold for a half-mil. But we looked out on the river and saw the same view that our ancestors would have enjoyed.
We've begun to accumulate mounting evidence that Claude's son, Joseph Pitre, had already established himself in Beaubassin to the north, perhaps a decade before the Deportation (or, as it's known in Acadian, La Grande Derangement, "the Great Upheaval"). Just across the border, in New Brunswick, the Moncton Archives may hold the answers we've been searching for. Joseph's son Jean-Baptiste was the one who set out for deTroit. What led him there? How greatly was his family affected by the Deportations further south in Grand Pre and Port-Royal? Thus, our next step is to head north to the isthmus connecting Nova Scotia to the mainland, just as our ancestors might have done centuries ago.
It's been a prayerful journey. I missed an excellent Catholic Carnival with some well-written posts about prayer, so take heed on your journey and spend some time listening for God's answers in your heart.
No comments:
Post a Comment