Last Wednesday, July 28, was the 255th anniversary of the official beginning of the Expulsion of the Acadians from this area in 1755. The next day, Thursday, July 29, a group of five people set out to take part in the Public Archaeology Experience offered by Fort Beauséjour at the site of the former Acadian settlement of Beaubassin at Fort Lawrence.
First settling on the Isthmus of Chignecto circa 1672-74, the Acadians migrated from Port Royal to the area between Amherst and Aulac on the Missaguash River and lived there for several years. After surviving two separate raids from New England, the Acadians at Beaubassin experienced years of peace and growth in their community. The region was a major trading centre for the Acadians, who traded their surpluses with the English, French and New Englanders, as well as Mi’kmaq and Maliseet fur traders.
Regardless of the success the Acadians found living in this area less than 100 years after their peaceful settlement at Beaubassin were thrust into the Anglo-French rivalry. French officials persuaded the settlers to move to their side of the river and in the spring of 1750 forced approximately 1,000 Acadians to become refugees on the banks of the Missiguash when they burned all of their houses and other buildings on the Beaubassin ridge.
Today this is where hundreds of people come to dig every year searching for long buried history and evidence of their ancestors. Charles Burke is the archaeologist and director of the site, which is maintained by Parks Canada. This place is considered to be hallowed ground and “it is a place of great value to many people,” Burke said on Thursday as the group prepared for the day’s dig. “People have an invested identity with this site.”
This was especially true for one would-be-archaeologist that day. Gordon Hebert of Amherst is of Acadian descent and he knows of many family members who would have lived and died at Beaubassin. This gives him an overwhelming connection with the area and especially the archaeological dig happening there. Now in his third year of participating in the public archaeology program, Hebert said during his first experience it was very emotional to set foot on the ground of his ancestors. “I just enjoy being here, I don’t even have to be working,” said Hebert “I want to share in the experience of touching history, my history.”
The rookie archaeologists dug in pits three metres by three metres, scraping off centimeter thick layers of dirt at a time. With the supervision and trained eye of student assistants the group found artifacts like old rusty nails, small pieces of pottery from across Europe and discarded bits of pipe stems with teeth marks still visible. The most exciting find of the day was a lead seal imprinted with a French design. The seal may have been used on a bundle of textiles and was one of a dozen they have found on the site thus far. “Imagine the last hand that picked that up,” Hebert said excitedly, “There’s no doubt when you see the Fleur de Lis that it was touched by Acadians.”
Hebert is grateful that Parks Canada is developing the land and that the process is being shared with the community.
“So few people know the history of Beaubassin and it’s amazing the Acadians that come here and treat it as sacred ground,” he said.
Hebert hopes that in the future the site will become a more open and easily accessible park, something like Fort Beausejour but on a much smaller scale. Currently a plaque in a farmer’s yard commemorates the location of Fort Lawerence, and presently no dedication has been made to the settlement of Beaubassin.
