Canadian history is so close to us

Nova Scotia has lots of dated or documented history going back for many, many years. This we learned at school in the days when we had little - very little - interest in history or in our own heritage, for that matter.

In those school days of long ago we were much more interested in watching movies at the parish hall with Roy Rogers, Gene Autry or John Wayne showing us how the West was won. This was more exciting than listening to boring Acadian history. The native people had been here a long time before us as portrayed in those old movies.

With the passing years we all got more interested in our heritage, especially after the Historical Acadian Village of Nova Scotia was established in our area. One morning recently, while sipping my green herbal tea with the early morning coffee breakers, we got to talking on how much Canadian history had been made in Western Nova Scotia, real close to us. This reminded me; I had promised myself to visit Port-Royal National Historic site during the celebrations of 2004, a promise I had not kept.

To rectify this, I invited three of my cousins (Germain, Raymond and Keith d’Entremont) who share an interest in history to join me on a tour of the Habitation at Port Royal. We left in early morning and by 10 a.m. we were enjoying a walking tour of Annapolis Royal, where we saw the oldest wooden house in Canada dating to 1708.

This home is the private dwelling of Jim and Pauline How, who have restored it to its former glory. There were many historical properties in this beautiful Valley town. The walking tour was completed with a pleasant and informed conversation from famous tour guide Alan Melanson at Fort Anne.

Next stop: Habitation Champlain

Our next stop was Port-Royal National Historic site, known as “Habitation Champlain” to those of us who remembered our early French schoolbooks. Here we were lucky enough to get the Royal tour from the other famous Melanson guide; Wayne this time and twin brother to Alan.

You can be sure we had lots of questions and you can be equally sure that Wayne Melanson, in his wooden shoes, knew all the answers.

It all began when King Henri IV gave a fur trading monopoly in North America to the Frenchmen Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Mons. The condition was he should establish colonies there.

After much hardship, and sadly losing about half of his men on Isle Saint Croix, de Mons, Samuel de Champlain and others built a fort in 1605 on the Bay of Fundy at Port Royal. This was very much in Mi’kmaq territory and, unlike the old John Wayne movies, the friendship between the French and Natives was an enduring one, a friendship that surely saved their lives as the explorers were not prepared for harsh Canadian winters.

This history has been written many times and I will not repeat it here. My favourite room at the Habitation … needless to say … was the one where the Order of Good Cheer (“L’Ordre de Bon Temps”, in my school days) took place. If I may dream a bit, I could almost see my grandfather, completely at ease, sitting there at the big table drinking red wine and spinning a few good stories with Chief Membertou and the other natives as part of his audience.

If I may be vain here, I can also see myself with a flask of red wine, doing my little stand-up comedy gig as the closing act at the ceremonial dinner…. Dream on, Laurent!

Glad we weren’t asked to paint the steeple

On the way home, we stopped at the big stone church at St Bernard. This church was built between 1910 and 1942; an elegant place of worship and a living example of the dedication and hard work of Acadian fishermen, farmers and carpenters who donated days, months and years of their time to see its completion.

Unfortunately, it is leaking badly and in need of many repairs. Church Point, Digby County, was our next stop and near Universite Saint Anne stands one of the tallest wooden churches in North America. We were all glad that none of us were asked to paint the steeple.

Our last stop was at the water-operated mill at Bangor, not too far from the Saulnierville area. This sawmill is another flashback to days that no longer exist and represent the type of history that schoolkids should be learning today.

When we crossed the Yarmouth County line the fog was as thick as pea soup (in fishermen parlance). We knew we were back home, but a lot more informed on local history than when we had left in the morning.

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