Culture

The retention of the French language has been of fundamental concern to the Acadians. Success has been both undeniable and partial. On the one hand, New Brunswick’s status as Canada’s only official bilingual province represents a victory; on the other hand, the almost complete disappearance of the French language in villages such as Chezzetcook, Nova Scotia, is clearly a defeat.

The battle for French has been long and hard. Marking its formal beginning was the campaign for French education that resulted from the Acadian conventions of the 1880s. From that time forward, not only has the link between the French language and Acadian culture been unquestioned by most of the Acadian elite, but they have seen the use of French as mother tongue and language of the home as an essential ingredient of Acadian identity. While many Acadians welcomed the federal government’s embrace of official bilingualism in the late 1960s, others were wary. Bilingualism was, in their view, almost certain to mean that Acadians would speak English while, perhaps, preserving their own mother tongue; no one believed that bilingualism would lead to anglophones speaking French. Subsequently, attitudes softened and indeed there is currently widespread support among Acadians for the provision of bilingual services wherever numbers warrant across the country. At the same time, the preservation of the French language is a cause promoted in the 1990s in all three Maritime provinces by educational institutions, the media, and individual artists.

In many ways, the rich, complex pattern of Acadian cultural life resembles the use of the French language: in neither case has an original heritage been kept as a dead artifact. Whether it is language or music, dance or song, literary tradition or culinary art, the Acadians have melded a traditional heritage with their everyday experiences to produce something uniquely their own. Acadian folklore, some of which can be traced to stories told by Rabelais in the sixteenth century, consists of new, local versions of old legends. Aesop’s fables are brought to life once more with an Acadian twist, and stories are told of ships sailing with crews of utterly unsuitable animals. A popular Acadian character is “TiJean,” with no gift or power save a sharp intelligence and a sense of his own right to be who he is and where he is despite his limited worldly goods. Complaintes, songs accompanied by the violin or by spoons, are ballads involving shipwrecks and other disasters, separated lovers, and other dramatic tales, all as moving as any Scottish or Irish folk melody. Until the mid-twentieth century, this oral heritage was kept alive by family performances at social events. However, owing to the work of Father Anselme Chiasson, Sister Catherine Jolicoeur, and the Centre d’Études Acadiennes at the Université de Moncton, much of it has been brought together in more permanent form.

In the late twentieth century, Acadian music, fostered by provincial musical contests and interprovincial festivals, has emerged as a thriving cultural industry. Parish choirs, drawing upon the rich tradition of religious musical life within the communities, flourished throughout the 1950s and 1960s, and in the 1980s and 1990s many of them, such as the Chorale LaFrance of Tracadie, Les Alinos of Shediac, and the choir of Cheticamp, were sufficiently competent to record major works. The Chorale Notre-Dame d’Acadie and the Jeunes Chanteurs d’Acadie have both won national and international competitions contests. As well, solo artists in the field of popular music such as Edith Butler, Lina Boudreau, Angèle Arsenault, Ronald Bourgeois, and Calixte Duguay won renown in the Maritimes before going on to win laurels in Quebec and France. A number of them, including Ronald Bourgeois and Angèle Arsenault, are also composers.

There are also several first-rate Acadian artists in the field of classical music. Rose-Marie Landry, born in Ontario but raised in Caraquet, is currently pursuing a brilliant career as a soprano. Other leading performers are Robert Savoie, Eugène Lapierre, Laura Gaudet, and the sisters Marie-Germaine and Marguerite Leblanc. Acadian appreciation of classical music is fostered by the Concert Baroque, a world-renowned musical festival held annually in the village of Lameque, New Brunswick, which attracts a roster of international participants. There is even an Acadian opera, Louis Mailloux, with music by Calixte Duguay and dialogue by Jules Boudreau. Based upon the Caraquet riots of 1885, it was first performed in Caraquet on 20 October 1975.

Acadian festivals are of two distinct types: those held frequently, often annually, to celebrate a traditional event, whether liturgical or secular, and those held to mark special occasions. An example of the former is Caraquet’s annual celebration in honour of the local fishing fleet; the latter type is represented by such celebrations as those organized for the 375th anniversary of Port Royal (1979) or for the 100th anniversary of the first national convention. Annual events such as the Foire Brayon in Edmundston or the Concert Baroque at Lameque attract large numbers of tourists and so are of considerable importance to the economies of their particular localities. With the decline in religious observance over the last few decades, celebrations of Shrove Tuesday, or Mi-Careme – the mid-point of Lent – are much less common than they were. However, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, celebrated on 15 August, is still an important festival in Acadian communities. As the patron saint of the Acadians, Mary continues to inspire affection and loyalty.

Dance has been important to Acadians and troops such as La Troupe Folklorique du Madawaska have had successful international tours. Acadian painters and sculptors have also made their mark both within the region and internationally. Claude Roussel is considered the first modern Acadian sculptor. His bas reliefs illustrating the deportation can be seen in the church at Grand-Pré. Other works by him are on display at the Saint John city hall and on the campus of the Université de Moncton. Claude Picard, from Saint-Basile, is one of the first Acadians to be able to make a living from his painting. He has produced a number of striking, if romanticized, pictures of Acadian life, both before and during the deportation. In Nova Scotia and in Prince Edward Island also, Acadian painters flourish, some using Acadian history as a central theme in their work while others celebrate contemporary life. Many Acadian artists are both painters and poets and often add filmmaking and photography to their endeavours. Leonard Forest and Heménégilde Chiasson are as distinguished for their poetry as for their films. Their subject matter is usually but not always the Acadian experience, whether in the past or in the present.

Writers have made an inestimable contribution to the Acadian identity. Like many languages, Acadian French has two forms: common speech and a literary form. Common speech bears the same relationship to elite French as do the dialects of Perpignan or Marseilles to the French spoken by the Paris intelligentsia, while the French that is written and spoken by the college-educated Acadian is as like the French of the educated class in France as Canadian English is to that spoken by an educated English person. Often, however, in much the same way as the Yorkshire or Devon dialect is used to make an English novel more vivid, Acadian writers have used common-speech patterns rather than the less vivid French of the college-trained. The rich texture of Acadian writing comes from a combination of two factors: historical memory of a people’s courage in adversity, not just in the eighteenth century but throughout the troublesome years that followed; and vibrant affirmation of the Acadians’ right to exist in the contemporary world. Works such as Ronald Labelle’s and Lauraine Leger’s En N’Montant la tradition hommage au Père Chiasson (1982) and Ronald Labelle’s Au Village-du-Bois: Mémoires d’une communauté acadienne (1985) make explicit the way in which Acadians have recounted their history orally from one generation to the next.

There are Acadian poets of great ability, including ones of lyrical sweetness such as Leonard Forest as well as others crying out against the injustices of life, such as Herménégilde Chiasson. Their language is vibrant and passionate and, along with great talent, they have the saving grace of humour. Antonine Maillet, the author of La Sagouine (1971) and Pélagie-la-Charette(1979) among other works, is by far the best known of Acadian novelists. Pélagie-la-Charette won the Prix Goncourt, the most prestigious of France’s literary awards; Maillet is the only Canadian author to have obtained this honour. Universal in appeal, her writings centre upon Acadian life past and present and are redolent with Acadian dialect and folk perceptions. Among the other talented Acadian writers who could be mentioned, Claude Lebouthillier has written historical novels based on eighteenth-century Acadian life, of which Le Feu du mauvais temps (1989) is one of the most stirring. He has also written novels of contemporary life that reflect the challenges Acadians face today. Another writer, Laurier Melanson, has published novels of almost Rabelaisian humour, Zelika à cochon vert (1981) perhaps being his best.

The imposing richness of Acadian cultural life is sustained by the high level of artistic activity that is carried on by those whose lives are bound up with more mundane ways of earning a living. High school teachers of language, such as Roger Dufour in Edmundston, paint well enough to exhibit and sell their works. Retired educators such as Audrey Coté St Onge have similarly worked towards recognition of what is their second vocation, painting. Amateur theatricals provide an opportunity for budding Acadian playwrights to practise their craft, and desktop publishing has been responsible for the first publications of many Acadian poets.

The range and vitality of Acadian culture can be most easily grasped through two major scholarly works, Les Acadiens des Maritimes (1980) and L’Acadie des Maritimes (1993), both edited by Jean Daigle, himself of Acadian descent but born and brought up in Montreal and the present holder of the chair of Acadian studies at the Université de Moncton. These volumes draw upon the extensive work of Acadian intellectuals: historians, linguists, sociologists, political scientists, literary critics, musicologists, and ethnologists. Each includes a lengthy bibliography of works focusing on the Acadian experience, and the second volume discusses the Acadian reality from the changing perspective of the late twentieth century.

There is no doubt that the existence of a francophone press has greatly helped the Acadian communities in maintaining their traditions. French-language newspapers published in the Maritimes have been an important part of Acadian culture, although their economic fortunes have often been as precarious as those of other ethnic journals. Fifteen francophone newspapers were established between 1867 and 1945, and another twenty-five followed from 1945 to 1995. Some have been local endeavours, such as Le Courrier des Provinces Maritimes (Bathurst, 1885–1900). During its brief but influential life, 44 percent of its articles were about the political problems of the Acadians of the region, while 28 percent discussed religious issues. Le Madawaska (Edmundston, 1913– ), a weekly, has almost 7,000 subscribers. Also significant in its place and time was Le Petit courrier de la Nouvelle Écosse (Digby, Yarmouth, West Pubnico, 1937– 72), revived as Le Courrier de la Nouvelle Écosse (Yarmouth, 1974– ), with a present circulation of 4,000. There have been a number of other local francophone publications which, however evanescent, reflected the experiences of their readership.

At least three publications have had the more ambitious goal of forming Acadian public opinion throughout the Maritimes. The Acadian Monitor (Shediac, 1867– ), first published by Israel Landry, was always a stout defender of the linguistic and religious rights of Acadians. L’Évangeline (The Evangeline; Digby, Weymouth, Moncton, 1887–1982) appeared variously as a weekly, a bi-weekly, and a daily. Some English-language papers disliked it heartily, the Windsor Tribune commenting that it represented a “separatist spirit.” L’Évangeline presented Acadian ethnicity as a given and its goal was to ensure its people’s continued survival. Its pages were dominated by Acadian news, and, under the editorship of Emery Leblanc during the 1950s, it was explicitly committed to an Acadian identity founded upon language, religion, and history. Its demise in 1982 was the result not of its ideology but of labour difficulties and an inability to adapt effectively to new technology. L’Acadie nouvelle (Moncton, 1984– ) rose from its ashes. Drawing support from the Caraquet region, it had, for its first issue, some 5,500 subscribers and by 1991, 18,500.

During the 1970s southeastern New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island all established new francophone journals. Those centred in the region between Cap-Pelé and Richibucto have changed their form and names a number of times but in 1995 two still flourished: Le Moniteur and l’Éxpress du Sud-Est. La Voix acadienne de Île-du-Prince Édouard, established as a weekly at Charlottetown in 1975, currently prints 1,200 copies of each issue and has some 225 subscribers. Finally, Le Ven’ d’Est, a bi-monthly founded by Euclide Chiasson in 1985, brings together information and views from all Acadian communities and is a forum for in-depth discussion of questions relating to Acadian identity.

In the realm of electronic media, it was not until the middle of the 1970s that Societé Radio Canada began to help Acadians create their own radio programs for broadcast throughout the Maritimes. Moncton became the centre for Radio Canada productions aimed at Acadians, and commercial radio stations catering to francophone listeners also emerged, the first being CJVA in Caraquet, founded in 1977. In 1989 volunteer effort and private enterprise launched three others radio stations: one at St Mary’s Bay, one in Madawaska, and a third in the northeast. With regard to television, there are no Acadian commercial television stations, but many Acadians have done television work in Quebec for Radio Canada and such experience has allowed a number of them to become technically proficient filmmakers. Films by Claudette Lajoie-Chiasson are set in the region of Caraquet and portray the lives of women with much sympathy. Phil Comeau produced J’avions 375 ans for the National Film Board as a celebration of Acadian history. Jacques Savoie’s La Porte tournante (1984), a full-length work that expresses a poetic sensibility for the marginalized, tells the story of Acadian life in Campbell-town in the 1930s. In 1995 Toronto held its first Acadian Film Festival, bringing together not only shorts, animations, and documentaries but also five full-length features, including the award-winning Le Secret de Jerome.