In the southern part of Cape Breton Island, the Acadians of the County Municipality of Richmond who still speak French are grouped together in the predominantly French-speaking archipelago[1], of which Isle Madame is the main island. Many of them are considered descendants of Acadians who emigrated to Cape Breton in the early 18th century, particularly to Petit-de-Grat. Since Isle Madame was not conducive to agriculture, they practiced cod fishing and coastal trade with the capital city of Louisbourg. After the fall of Louisbourg in 1758, some of them managed to hide inland and then, feeling safe again, returned to Petit-de-Grat to work as fishermen. Of course, the place was ideally located, close to the fishing banks of the Scotian continental shelf. But the Acadians still had to find a buyer for their catch in the British regime. And that is how the Robin company entered their lives…
Comparison is not reason
In 1765, the Robin Company was the first of the Jersey companies to set up its fishing and shipbuilding business at the entrance to Arichat Harbour. To supply a flourishing cod trade, it recruited many Acadian fishermen and other workers, forming a permanent and dependent workforce. They experienced a situation of debt and poverty comparable to that experienced by their cousins in Chéticamp[2] along the Gulf of St. Lawrence. But Isle Madame, advantaged by its position on international shipping routes, did not experience the economy and the settlement of Chéticamp…
In the 1820s, the prosperity of Arichat’s port attracted significant English-speaking immigration, contributing to the weakening of the Acadian and Francophone culture of the archipelago. In the 1870s, the Jersey companies were hit hard by the economic collapse[3] of the port of Arichat and lost their dominance. It was therefore not to escape their influence, as in Chéticamp, that the Acadians participated in the rise of the cooperative movement in the 1930s. They simply wanted to control their economic and social future. Finally, in the 1990s, after another serious crisis in the fishing industry, the Acadians of Isle Madame felt the urgent need to think about their economic future. How could they diversify their economy while perpetuating their Acadian and Francophone culture? A new cultural anchor was imposed. Which one? Let’s first go back to the 19th century…
Early assimilation
It was in the first half of the 19th century that the influx of English-speaking immigrants profoundly changed the ethnic and religious composition of Arichat. In 1811, 90% of the inhabitants were Catholic Acadians. In 1838, this proportion had fallen to 66%. Historian Sally Ross[4] compared the ethnic and religious profile of Arichat with that of four other Acadian villages in Nova Scotia, using official statistics from 1911, which were similar to those from 1871. What do we observe? The villages of Petit-de-Grat, Chéticamp and, in the southwest of the province, Pointe-de-l’Église and Pubnico-Ouest, were almost 100% Acadian and Catholic. For its part, because of its power of attraction, the village of Arichat had a Catholic majority (78%) composed mainly of Acadians, but also of Scots and Irish forming an English-speaking minority.
A minority of Anglicans (20%) also lived in Arichat. Their church had been founded to serve the Jersey merchants and their families, who considered themselves English. These bilingual, well-educated and particularly influential Jerseymen held almost all the important positions in Richmond County until the 1850s. As for the Acadians, in the absence of sufficient education and mastery of bilingualism, they were always under-represented. Their ethnic majority, subjected very early to exogamous marriages and assimilation, became a linguistic minority.
A new anchor for the future
At the end of the 19th century, on Isle Madame, after the decline of maritime transport and shipbuilding, the fishing sector was still active. In the 20th century, it diversified with the creation of lobster and fish processing plants, particularly in Petit-de-Grat. Many young Acadians were nevertheless forced to leave the archipelago to find work. In 1992, the serious crisis in the fishing industry[5] prompted the Acadian community to reflect on its economic and cultural future. After many meetings, it decided to create a new French-speaking anchor point, La Picasse (an old Acadian word meaning “anchor”), in order to build a future on a solid foundation.
What is La Picasse? Acadians wanted to perpetuate local Acadian culture and promote the French language, both weakened by decades of assimilation, and develop the economy through education. This is how La Picasse cultural community centre opened its doors in 1997 in Petit-de-Grat. Today, its facilities allow it to organize many community, artistic and cultural activities. In addition, it offers various services to the community through its partnerships with francophone organizations in the province. It houses the Northeast region office of the Conseil scolaire acadien provincial, which manages four public schools[6], and the Isle Madame office of the Conseil de développement économique de la Nouvelle-Écosse. It also houses the regional library, the CITU community radio station and a Service Canada community office. Finally, the Petit-de-Grat campus and the Marine Research Centre of Université Sainte-Anne, the only French-speaking university in Nova Scotia, are located in the same location.
We could not have dreamed of a better concentration of community and cultural services, university and college programs, and community economic development services. The college sector of Université Sainte-Anne has understood this so well that it has awarded in May 2024 the Prix d’excellence Louis E. Deveau at La Picasse to reward his efforts for the community. In all, with such a well-established Acadian and Francophone community, La Picasse has never been more deserving of its name.
In memory of Acadian history
The La Picasse centre, an anchor point for the Acadian community, also manages the Petit-de-Grat Acadian Festival, a manifestation of Acadian pride, several of which take place in the centre.
Among the heritage sites of Isle Madame, we find in Arichat the LeNoir Forge Museum, which recalls the golden age of shipbuilding in the 19th century, as well as the Notre-Dame de l’Assomption Church, a neoclassical and Gothic style building. Erected in 1837, promoted to cathedral in 1844 when the first bishop of the new diocese of Arichat[7] was ordained, it is the oldest surviving Roman Catholic church in Nova Scotia. The priests of the new diocese, almost all Scottish, were firmly convinced that the Church in Canada could only be English-speaking. Today, even if the absence of a French-speaking Church still saddens them, the Acadians can rejoice that their new anchor point offers them a promising future in French.
Header image: La Picasse Centre, in Petit-de-Grat (Photo courtesy of La Picasse Centre).
Author: Jean-Marc Agator,
Paris Region, France.
English translation: Jean-Pierre Bernier,
Greater Toronto Area (ON), Canada.
Main sources
Ross, Sally et J. Alphonse Deveau ; Les Acadiens de la Nouvelle-Ecosse, hier et aujourd’hui ; Les Editions d’Acadie, Moncton, 1995.
LeBlanc, Gabriel ; Mon Isle Madame, une histoire acadienne ; Les Editions de la Francophonie, Lévis (QC), 2016.
Le Conseil de développement économique de la Nouvelle-Ecosse; Community Profile, Isle Madame region, 2023.
[1] Subdivision C of the County Municipality of Richmond, where 55.7% of the 3,136 residents are still able to conduct a conversation in both official languages (Statistics Canada 2021).
[2] See the article “Chéticamp. Cooperation to save the community” on this site.
[3] One of the major reasons for this was the opening of the first lock on the Saint-Pierre Canal in 1869, which diverted commercial ships to the Bras d’Or Lake.
[4] Sally Ross, “Majority or Minority: The Case of Isle Madame,” SHA, vol. 23 no. 3 and 4, 1992, pp. 143-157.
[5] The collapse of fish stocks on Canada’s east coast prompted the federal government to declare a moratorium on fishing for cod and other groundfish.
[6] See on this site the generic article “A Long Fight for Education in French”.
[7] Transferred in 1880 to Antigonish.