The French Connection...

Thursday, October 20th Dan and I loaded our cube truck once again and headed 350 kilometers north to Campbellton, NB... for our sixth sale. 

Campbellton is a small town nestled on the south shore of Chaleur Bay with a very small Mennonite Brethren congregation. Fourty people on a Sunday morning is a larger gathering.  For 25 years now these committed folks have hosted a Ten Thousand Villages sale.  Campbellton had a special attraction for us...Dan's brother, Abe, and Helen had pastored this church for several years some time ago now... and yes, many people still remembered them fondly.  We set up a wonderful store, right in their sanctuary. 



Restigouche Valley Church far left, on the bay



We`re ready for the sale!



                                                           
The church building was a former fish market and people say they can still pick up a peculiar odour on off days!  Campbellton has become a largely Francophone town in recent years, and there was deliberate effort to promote the sale to this population.

Well... we were only across the Bay from Gaspe Peninsula, so on Sunday afternoon, after staying for church with our new friends, we headed our rental car across the interprovincial bridge linking Campbellton to Pointe-a-la- Croix, Quebec, and we were off for another adventure.  What a wonderful time this was!  Destination...Perce

                                                                               

The coastal highway meandered its way peacefully around the coast, from picturesque village to village...water to our right and the most northernly stretch of the Appalachians on our left.  The glorious oranges and reds were mostly gone now, but the tamarack were in full golden glory.  In 2009 the  National Geographic Society designated Gaspesie as the third most beautiful destination in the world!  The former fishing villages now catering primarily to artists and tourism.    

                                                             
Someone in Campbellton told us we mustn't miss St Joseph's Abbey up the mountainside at Carlton Sur Mer, about twenty kms up the South Shore. By this time I had developed some interest in early Acadian history and learned that Abbot Joseph-Mathurin Bourg was the first Acadian priest...arriving at this site in Gaspe in 1772.  In 1756 seven exiled Acadian families had moved here following a brutal deportation from Nova Scotia.  Yes, the views were spectacular.

                      

                          

We reached Perce, at the eastern tip of Gaspe, just before sundown.  We had noticed that most of the inns along the way, and even restaurants, were closed for the season, so we were most excited when the inn keeper at Cote Surprise, right across from the Rock, found one clean room in his closed hotel for us to rent for the night.  From the little mezzanine we could gaze over the water.  Dan`s response: "This is so beautiful, it hurts.!"

Early the next morning we were out on the boardwalk and up the trails to soak in the beauty of Perce/"pierced rock"...this limestone monolith 289' high and 1542' long.

                                                                        

Our time was only too short!

 Heads up, cycling friends...Dan and I are dreaming of a cycling vacation on the Gaspe! . 

Back to the French Connection....

In Eastern Canada history is everywhere alive. Everywhere we go, it seems, there are museums and historical sites reminding us of the beginnings of western history in North America.  At Perce, we were just short of the settlement of Gaspe, where Cartier landed in 1534...

just not enough time to explore it all. 

But it`s the Acadian story that has caught my imagination...with its similarity, in some signficant aspects, to the Russian Mennonite experience.



Proud Acadian flags fly in many villages

 In the early 1700s the population of French settlers in "maritime New France" (Acadia) numbered about ten thousand.  Many settled along the marshlands of the Minas Basin (Bay of Fundy).  Here they dyked and farmed their land...close-knit, homogeneous communities attached to their religion and traditions. But they were soon to be become victims, caught between the opposing forces of France and England fighting for supremacy in the New World.  In 1726, in return for the promise of exemption from taking arms and freedom to practice their religion, many Acadians pledged allegiance to Britain.  But this was not to save them...in 1755 six thousand Acadians were ruthlessly evicted from their farms and homes by British forces and sent into exile... scattered throughout New England provinces, some as far away as Louisianna.   

Grand Pre National Historic Site

Today, all over the Atlantic Provinces, Acadians are reclaiming national pride.  At Grand Pre, on Fundy Shore, beautiful gardens with a statue of Evangeline, and a memorial church commemorate the expulsion of the Acadians.

And I had to pick up a copy of Evangeline, Henry Wordsworth Longfellows epic poem about the expulsion, published in 1847.  This poem is said to have immortalized the pathos of the Acadian story...a tragic tale of the forced separation of two young lovers.  And, indeed, the story lives on...and we are told there is a Francophone resurgence happening today, throughout the Atlantic provinces. 

So...as of Monday, Nov.7 we have seven sales under our communal belts.  Dan and I have three more big ones to go. 

But this weekend we have off, and yes...we're up for more adventure.  Back to Fundy Coastal Drive, this time touring west of St. John, NB to St. Andrews and Deer Island.  We'll let you know!