In the city of Halifax, on a territory that the Micmacs once called Kjipuktuk (the great harbour), the Georges Island Ferry allows you to visit Georges Island National Historic Site. The view of the city is splendid from this small fortified island that played a vital role in the defence of Halifax’s great harbour. But Georges Island also had a less glorious past. Between 1755 and 1763, it served as a place of detention, in difficult conditions, for hundreds of Acadian prisoners, awaiting their deportation to the Anglo-American colonies or England. Today, Georges Island is a sacred place for Acadians, reviving their painful memory of the deportation. Now let’s look at the Halifax Metropolitan Area more broadly…
With a total population of 440000 (as of 2021), including a French-speaking minority [1], the Halifax Regional Municipality is the largest urban centre in Atlantic Canada. In the Francophone community, Acadians are in the majority, most of whom are the result of economic immigration in the 20th century. However, in the metropolitan area, about thirty kilometres east of downtown Halifax, there is a much older community that still proudly defends its Acadian and Francophone culture…
L’Acadie de Chezzetcook
This ancient community so proud of its Acadian heritage is located on the west shore of Chezzetcook Cove, in the two neighbouring villages of West Chezzetcook and Grand Desert. Its presence dates back to the 1760s, when former prisoners from Georges Island and Acadian refugees from Cape Breton quickly populated the territory. In the early 1770s, the colony had a dozen Acadian families. In 1815, it had 47. For a long time, this Catholic and rural population resisted assimilation. However, by the end of the 20th century, the French language was hardly heard in the community, which no longer knew its history or culture.
At the dawn of the 21st century, passionate Acadians worked to re-educate this community about the French language and its local history and culture. This is how they created L’Acadie de Chezzetcook, a bilingual association responsible, through its historic site in West Chezzetcook, for promoting the community’s Acadian and Francophone culture. Similarly, a French-speaking school, the Ecole des Beaux-Marais, was created in 2011. Currently, the historic site includes a museum dedicated to the traditional Acadian way of life, a community hall (La Grange) and a café-restaurant (La Cuisine de Brigitte).
And now? L’Acadie de Chezzetcook has just embarked on the ambitious project to transform the village’s Saint-Anselm church, deconsecrated in 2022 but of great symbolic importance for the Acadians, into a new community centre: the Chezzetcook Inlet Acadian Centre. With this great cultural and tourism development project, the region’s Acadian and Francophone community can be confident in its future.
Header image: The future Chezzetcook Inlet Acadian Centre (Photo courtesy of L’Acadie de Chezzetcook).
Jean-Marc Agator
Paris, France
Primary Source
Ross, Sally, et J. Alphonse Deveau ; Les Acadiens de la Nouvelle-Ecosse, hier et aujourd’hui ; Les Editions d’Acadie, Moncton, 1995.
[1] 2.3% of the population has French as their mother tongue, but 12.2% are able to conduct a conversation in both official languages (Statistics Canada 2021).