In 1682, a group of French families moved east along the south coast of the Bay of Fundy from the village of Annapolis Royal in search of new farmland. They settled beside an unpromising area of salt marshes, optimistically naming their new village Grand-Pré, 'Great Meadow'. Over the next half century, using traditional French agricultural methods, they reclaimed the salt marshes and created some of the finest farmland in the world, un Grand Pré indeed. With the help of their Mi'kmaq allies, they defended the soil they had made, but in the end were forcibly removed and their land was resettled by British subjects from the New England Colonies. Grand-Pré is today a National Historic Site of Canada and is inscribed on the List of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

This is the forest primeval

Grand-Pré was built over the course of the years after 1682, at the end of a narrow strip of land between the Cornwallis and Gaspereau Rivers in what is now the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. The village and the farms it tended were to become the breadbasket of Acadia and indeed, of all New France. The name Acadia derived from 'Arcadia', and the rich village of Grand-Pré had the potential to be Arcadian in fact. But, from early in their history, the people of Grand-Pré and the Annapolis valley were to be the pawns and victims of outside political forces.

once more the stir and noise

In 1704, just two decades after its founding, Grand-Pré was raided during Queen Anne's War by a band of New Englanders under Benjamin Church. The Acadians and their Mi'kmaq friends put up a stiff resistance, but the New Englanders torched the village. In 1710, Acadia was conquered by Britain, a conquest confirmed by the Treaty of Utrecht which ended the War of the Spanish Succession.

Acadians chafed under British rule, refusing to take an unconditional loyalty oath. When hostilities broke out again between European powers in the War of the Austrian Succession, rebuilt Grand-Pré became a battle field again. In 1747, French forces under Jean Baptiste-Nicolas-Roch de Ramezay defeated the British at Grand-Pré but did not hold the village.

The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen) concluded this war and returned territories to their pre-war situation. The Acadians of Grand-Pré and Annapolis Royale were left still under British rule. In 1749, a voluntary exodus of Acadians to nearby areas still held by the French began. The refugees were largely supported by food contributed by the rich farmland of Grand-Pré. Grand-Pré also supplied the French fortresses of Louisbourg and Beausejour and even far away Quebec.

Also in 1749, a force of Mi'kmaq and Acadian soldiers besieged the British Fort Vieux Logis in what is known as the siege of Grand-Pré. A number of prisoners were captured by the allied forces and held for two years before being ransomed, but French control of Acadia was at an end. Ten years later on the Plains of Abraham, French rule would end in virtually all of North America.

The British further consolidated their hold by establishing two important fortified colonial towns on Nova Scotia's South Shore: Halifax, now the capital city of Nova Scotia, in 1749 and Lunenburg – now a UNESCO World Heritage Site – in 1753.

As in a church, when the chant of the choir at intervals ceases, footfalls are heard in the aisles

By 1755, the British had had enough. In the summer of that year, British troops assembled at Fort Henry (now Windsor) near Grand-Pré and began the forcible Expulsion of the Acadians, removing thousands of people and shipping them to distant British colonies. On 18 August, British soldiers marched into Grand-Pré. On 5 September, the military ordered all male villagers over the age of ten – over 400 individuals – into the Church of Saint-Charles-des-Mines, where half of them were imprisoned for five weeks. After the first week, about 200 of the men and boys were moved to prison ships off shore. The women and children of Grand-Pré were ordered to feed the prisoners and their own British military guards. The prisoners were informed that all of their possessions were forfeit to the Crown. On 13 October, the British and their prison ships, loaded with over 2,000 Acadians from the area, set sail after firing the entire area. Grand-Pré was completely depopulated. Over 200 houses, an equal number of barns, and a dozen mills were utterly destroyed by the British. In 1760, a group of New Englanders known as the New England Planters arrived to resettle the rich land their predecessors had painstakingly reclaimed from the sea. They named their new village Hortonville, but most soon moved to the nearby British town of Mud Creek (now Wolfville).

Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pré

Today, Grand-Pré is a quiet rural area. A memorial chapel, the Deportation Cross, and the bronze monument to Evangeline, the heroine of Longfellow's poem concerning the Expulsion, mark the site of the vanished village. The dykes 'that the hands of the farmer had raised with labour incessant' are still visible. Any other physical remnants are buried in the soil they made.

Getting There

The nearest international airport to Grand-Pré is at Halifax, which is also a port of call for many cruise ships. Grand-Pré is about 100km from Halifax. From Halifax, take Highway 101 northwest to Exit 10 onto Highway 1, also known as the Evangeline Trail. About one kilometre from the exit, turn north onto the Grand-Pré Road. The visitor centre is open through the summer, but the site is accessible year round. Perhaps a quiet visit in the autumn, after the harvest, with only the sound of fallen leaves, blown by 'the mighty blasts of October'¹ around the Deportation Cross, would be the best experience of the site.