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Much of this article was written at Tatamagouche within sight of the scenes of the frustrated hopes, the futile labors and the tragic end of the Acadians. A few yards to the south beneath briers and bushes lie that which is mortal of their few who died at Tatamagouche; to the East across the quiet waters of the main River and near the red banks of Steele’s Island can be seen the ancient burying-ground of the Micmac Indians; a stone’s throw to the Westward flows the marsh edged French River, on whose surface then ceiled in sheeted white, De Villier led his men in January 1747 on their way to the Massacre of Grand Pre; away to the Northward sheltered by the long arm of the Malagash Peninsula, and now in August, alive with the incessant glistening of the summer’s sun, ebbs and flows the tide of Tatamagouche Harbour, where in June 1745, Donahew fought his last sea fight. In the countryside around are modern houses, spacious barns, orchards with ripening fruits, , gardens bright in bloom, fields of waving, maturing grain, of pastures and of growing crops, where the Acadians once cleared the forests, built their cabins and swung scythe and sickle in fields studded with stumps. Now high speed motor cars and trucks go racing over broad gravelled roads, where the Acadians on foot or with ox teams trudged along the rough trails through woods and over swamp and upland; while the Short-line trains rattle around Ross’ Point and along the shore where the Micmacs and Malecite Indians in that long ago pitched their birch-bark wigwams, lit their camp fires, loaded their canoes, boats and shallops and then paddled or sailed out into the Harbour’s mouth. Back |
