A Walk Through TIME & HISTORY

‘Céad míle fáilte’ or ‘a hundred thousand welcomes’ as they say in Nova Scotia! by Karen Cook, Kingston, N.S.

- Karen Cook

The Cape St. Mary Lighthouse stands guard over the jagged cliffs and coastline of the French Shore of Nova Scotia.

The history and the beauty of Nova Scotia are one and the same to me. The stories, lore and legacy of the Acadian people blend into one scenic roadway, the Evangeline Trail. It meanders through the patchwork of orchards and farms of the Annapolis Valley, and along the shoreline of St. Mary’s Bay to its terminus in Yarmouth, once one of the busiest seaports in the world. This is my home, my ancestry and the places I love to capture the most through the lens of my camera—no matter the season —are located here. The Acadians, a peace-loving people from France, arrived in what is now Nova Scotia in the early 1600s. They settled in Port Royal, throughout the Annapolis Valley and into New Brunswick. Industrious, and determined to keep the sea at bay, they built a series of dykelands, transforming marshes into farmland. Amazingly, near Grand Pré, those dykelands are still there—acres of verdant soil below sea level.

In 1755, after refusing to sign an oath of allegiance to the British Crown, the Acadians were ordered expelled from their lands. In what became known as the Expulsion of the Acadians, or the Great Upheaval, families were torn apart, separated from their lands and forced to leave. Of the more than 14,000 Acadian settlers living in the Maritimes, more than 11,000 were displaced. Many never returned, and many more died. Some moved to Louisiana and became known as Cajuns. Others returned at a later time once it was safe to do so.

The great American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow memorialized this tragedy in his epic work titled Evangeline. First published in 1847, the publication of this poem brought history to life and in the 20th century, the Evangeline Trail took its name from this poem.