Evangeline

Our recent trip to the Canadian Maritimes inspired me to pick up and read a copy of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's classic story poem Evangeline (#1,071).  I never got much further than "This is the forest primeval..." when I was younger, and after the visiting the Grand Pre՛ Historic Site in Nova Scotia I decided to remedy that omission.

The story concerns the expulsion of the Acadian settlers from their fertile farms by the English between 1755 and 1763.  It focuses on two newly betrothed villagers of Grand Pre, Evangeline and her Gabriel.  They are separated before they can be wed and spend years wandering, vainly searching for each other.

It's a tragic story based on true events.  When Longfellow's poem was published in the 1840s, he revived almost single-handedly in interest in the fate of the Acadians scattered throughout the world by the actions of the British.  Since the poem was so popular, a site to explain the expulsion was created on the site of the original Grand Pre, with a statue of the fictitious Evangeline on the grounds.  Both the site of Grand Pre and Longfellow's poem Evangeline are worth re-visiting.