Bretons

Many families in Canada are deeply rooted in the history of Brittany, and Canadians of French stock are heirs to a substantial legacy from this land that maintained its independence until the sixteenth century. Bretons were among the first to reach North America. Overall, Brittany can be said to have provided Canada with two waves of settlers. The first arrived in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and became irretrievably blended into the larger collectivity. The second wave left Brittany starting in the 1950s and have formed a Breton-Canadian community that remains aware of its specific cultural characteristics.