| Grand-Pré | |
|---|---|
| — Community — | |
| Grand-Pré National Historic Site | |
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| Coordinates: | |
| Country | Canada |
| Province | Nova Scotia |
| County | Kings County |
| Established | 1680 |
| Electoral Districts Federal |
Kings County |
| Provincial | Kings County |
| Area[1] | |
| • Land | 264.86 km2 (102.3 sq mi) |
| Elevation | 0- 92 m m (-302 ft ft) |
| Population (2006)[1][2] | |
| • Total | 5,499 |
| • Change 2001-06 | 6.4% |
| Time zone | AST (UTC-4) |
| • Summer (DST) | ADT (UTC-3) |
| Postal code(s) | B4P |
| Area code(s) | 902 |
| Dwellings | 2,474 |
| Median Income* | $45,135 CDN |
| NTS Map | 021N08 |
| GNBC Code | DALZZ |
| Website | Société Promotion Grand-Pré - The National Historic Site |
Grand-Pré is a Canadian rural community in Kings County, Nova Scotia. Its French name translates to "Great Meadow" and the community lies at the eastern edge of the Annapolis Valley several kilometres east of the town of Wolfville on a peninsula jutting into the Minas Basin, framed by the Gaspereau and Cornwallis Rivers. The community was made famous by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem Evangeline and is today home to the Grand-Pré National Historic Site.
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Grand-Pré was founded by Acadian settlers who traveled east from Champlain's original settlement in Port-Royal Annapolis Royal in 1680. The settlement grew and developed great expanses of tidal marsh as productive farmland.
During Queen Anne's War, New Englander Ranger Benjamin Church, in retaliation for the French Raid on Deerfield, burned the village in the Raid on Grand Pré. In this raid, Church and his rangers got stuck on the mud flats of Baie Francais (Bay of Fundy), which gave the Mi'kmaq and Acadians time to position themselves to fiercely defend the village. They were eventually overwhelmed and Church burned the village and the fields.
During King George's War, a French force led by Jean-Baptiste Nicolas Roch de Ramezay defeated a larger British force in a night raid at the Battle of Grand Pré. This battle was the most significant and bloodiest victory for the French in Acadia. The village, however, remained in British control once the French retreated.
During Father Le Loutre's War, the Acadians at Grand Pre played a significant role in supporting the Acadian Exodus out of mainland Nova Scotia, which started in 1749. Grand Pre willingly responded to the call from Le Loutre for basic food stuffs. The bread basket of the region, they raised wheat and other grains, produced flour in no fewer than eleven mills, and sustained herds of several thousand head of cattle, sheep and hogs. Regular cattle droves made their way over a road from Cobequid to Tatamagouche for the supply of Fort Beausejour, Louisbourg, and settlements on Ile St. Jean (Prince Edward Island). Other exports went by sea from Minas Basin to Isthmus of Chignecto or to the mouth of the St. John River, carried in Acadian vessels by Acadian middlemen.[3] The Acadians from Grand Pre also offered their labour to those at Isthmus of Chignecto to build a church and dykes.
The British built Fort Vieux Logis in the area during Father Le Loutre’s War, which was attacked by the Acadians and Mi'kmaq in the Siege of Grand Pre. The siege lasted for a week and the 300 natives took prisoners who remained in captivity for almost two years. Eventually the Mi'kmaq retreated.
During the French and Indian War, the Acadians were expelled from Grand Pré during the Bay of Fundy Campaign (1755). There were various British soldiers who kept a journal of the deportation from Grand Pré such as Jeremiah Bancroft. The site of Grand Pre during the expulsion was later immortalized by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow with his epic poem Evangeline.
Acadians from Grand Pré were dispersed in many locations and some eventually returned to other parts of the Canadian Maritimes such as Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and New Brunswick. Many Acadians expelled from the Grand Pré area eventually settled in the New England States and in South Louisiana in the United States. In Louisiana, the term Cajun evolved from the name Acadian.
After the deportation of the Acadians, the vacant lands were resettled by New England Planters in 1760 and renamed Horton. A large townsite was laid out at Grand Pre but merchants and shop owners congregated at nearby Wolfville instead, leaving Grand Pre to continue as a farming community. One of the Planter descendants was Sir Robert Laird Borden, the eighth Prime Minister of Canada, who was born in Grand-Pré in 1854. Grand Pre continued as a rich and productive but small farming community until the 1920s when the Dominion Atlantic Railway developed the Grand Pre memorial park to attract tourists. While agriculture remained Grand Pre's major industry, the park made the community a tourism destination as well as a memorial to the Acadian people. The Park eventually became a National Historic Site and in 1957 was purchased by the Canadian Park Service.
Today, Grand-Pré is the home the Grand-Pré National Historic Site which is now a national park administered by Parks Canada to commemorate the Acadian people and their deportation. One of Nova Scotia's best known wineries, Domaine de Grand Pré, is located in the community. Grand-Pré is also Canada's first designated Historic Rural District. The Just Us! coffee company headquarters is located in the town and is something of a tourist attraction. Evangeline Beach is a famous stopover for thousands of migrating shore birds and is also a fine vantage point for watching the ebb and flow of the world's highest tides.