Priscilla spent today in Acadia. Above are the photos she took; below are excerpts from a couple of emails she sent. And a few links are at the bottom.
Here are some pictures of stuff that I saw today. In some of these, I'm sitting on the dikes. It's so great to see the work the Acadians did here. They built up the dikes and waited for the rain to wash the salt from the earth, leaving the soil super fertile. After riding on the dikes for a while, I ended up on a small country dirt road. As I biked around there, everything looked and smelled like Roynac, so strange. Then I finally came up on Grand Pre. There I first saw the church. It is a newer version of the chapel that once stood around there. Grand Pre is supposedly the home of Evangeline and her beloved Gabriel, made famous by Longfellow's poem. They, of course, are fictitious characters, but apparently some locals believe they were real. There is a museum in Grand Pre with a beautiful statue of Evangeline.
Here I'm at the embarkation point of the deportation. The point is called Horton Landing. The British marched all of the Acadian men a couple of miles to this point to put them on dinghies. They were then taken out to the ships waiting in the Minas Bassin (in the Bay of Fundy) that would take them away from their homes, wives, mothers, and children. I had studied it a little, but to see the places was an entirely different thing. After they took all the Acadian men away ... they also deported the women over the course of a few years. The Brits quickly realized how fertile the land was and brought in the Planters from New England to continue where the Acadians had been forced to leave off.
The tide around here goes up 15 meters, so all that wet reddish looking dirt behind me in the one picture is under water during high tide. Same with the rocks I'm standing on in another picture. The cross is a monument that was put up in 1920s to commemorate the events of 1755.
Anyway, my day was super good. So glad I took the time to do this. I plan to be on my way bright and early tomorrow. Oh yeah ... I also took the time today to lube my chain and adjust my saddle. Riding today definitely more pleasant.
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