Rooted in tradition, the Acadian culture stands proud today, celebrated yearly on August 15th for nearly 140 years.

THE BEGINNING OF A TRADITION

It all started on July 20 and 21, 1881 during the first Acadian National Convention in Memramcook where it was decided that a national holiday for the Acadian people would take place on the feast of Notre Dame de l’Assomption (Our Lady of the Assumption), celebrated on August 15th.

When the day arrived, more than 5,000 participants gathered at the Collège Saint-Joseph for the historic inaugural celebration. It was then that the celebration would begin to be woven into the heritage and customs of the Acadian people.

Five years later, in 1886, the national holiday had its debut in Fredericton. The event was reported by an anonymous correspondent in the Shediac newspaper Le Moniteur Acadien in August of that year. No doubt struck by the special nature of the celebration in the very English environment of the city, the author of the article had made note of the Acadian presence in the village of Sainte-Anne, capital of Acadie, which later became Fredericton. The article retraced the activities held on that Sunday, where the participants, especially the teachers at the Normal School and a group of students, including 20 women, first attended a mass in honour of their patron saint.

Following the mass, they went on to Magee House where the owner, James Magee, had prepared all kinds of entertainment and joined the group with his wife to “celebrate the glorious Assumption in a dignified manner.” The celebrations wrapped up with a banquet attended by, among others, Alphée Belliveau, professor and head of the French department at the Normal School, and his wife, Marie Babineau, the creator of the first Acadian flag at the time of the Acadian National Convention in 1884.

TODAY

Over the years, the celebrations have evolved with the times. The August 15 celebrations as we know them today date back to the early 1980s, under the aegis and at the instigation of the Société Pierre-Amand-Landry, a local branch of the Société des Acadiens du Nouveau-Brunswick. The namesake for the society; P.-A. Landry was the first Acadian politician to hold major positions in the provincial and federal governments. He was also elected to the Senate of Canada, and was one of the organizers of the first Acadian National Convention in 1881. During this time, Acadians and Francophones in the capital city began hosting ceremonies and celebrations downtown, in particular, the raising of the Acadian flag.

The August 15 celebrations were subsequently organized every year by the Centre communautaire Sainte-Anne, which took over from the Société P.-A.-Landry. Although they may take diverse forms, they always serve the same purpose of facilitating the National Holiday celebrations for the Acadian and Francophone community. The event has certainly contributed to raising awareness of the Acadian culture and heritage in the city of Fredericton. A great example of this occurred on August 15, 2002, when the mayor at the time, Leslie Hull, along with representatives of the Francophone community, unveiled a plaque naming the riverfront drive “Point Saint Anne Boulevard.”

By continuing to celebrate August 15 in Fredericton, today’s Acadians and Francophones are proudly reviving a 134-year-old tradition by renewing the connection to the deep roots of their predecessors at Point Saint Anne.

Acadian Culture in Fredericton was written by Bernard-Marie Thériault, with help from his friend and historian Fidèle Thériault. In 2003, Fidèle published an article in the news bulletin of the Société d’histoire de la rivière Saint-Jean (SHRS) relaying the history of Acadian Day celebrations in Fredericton based on the account of it in Le Moniteur Acadien. When Bernard-Marie was asked to write about Acadian Day, he was immediately reminded of Fidèle’s article and knew that it would be the inspiration behind this blog. He felt that it is important for everyone celebrating to know of the origins of the fête nationale and its connections to the history of Fredericton and the former village Sainte-Anne. 

Self-proclaimed “amateur historian,” Bernard-Marie is very much interested in the Acadian heritage in Fredericton and it shows! He is both the president of the Société d’histoire and on the chair of the Associates of the Provincial Archives. An interesting fact about Bernard-Marie is that through the research of historians such as F. Thériault and the publications of the SHRS, he discovered that one of his ancestors resided on Sugar Island.