The ravages of twice-daily tides over generations finally took its toll and in 1943 the aboiteau on the Canning (Habitant) River was swept away upstream above Canning, the now unfettered waters of the Minas Basin flooded hundreds of acres of farmland. No longer held at bay, the sea eventually destroyed a vital link to Canning, the highway bridge west of the village. Surging upstream several miles to Sheffield Mills, the sea inundated dykeland that hadn’t seen tidewaters since Acadian times. Along with the bridge, sections of the main highway into Canning were washed out. Another vital link remained intact when the railroad trestle near the highway refused to yield to the tides.

It would be two years before another aboiteau shackled the Canning River tides and the highway bridge was replaced. Farmers with land immediately bordering the river couldn’t farm it during those years. Residents in communities north of the river lost direct access to Port Williams, Wolfville, Kentville and points south.

With the bridge out, commercial and social life suffered. “We didn’t realise the importance of the aboiteau or how much we depended on it until it went out,” a Canning resident observed. “It was always there and we took it for granted.”

The failure of the Canning River aboiteau to contain the tides was a catastrophe, but not a major one. “A minor disaster and a major nuisance,” was how someone put it.

The collapse of the aboiteau made people realise its importance to the community. Never again would it be taken for granted. And while I’m speculating, the aboiteau’s collapse probably made people conscious of their centuries-old link with our first settlers, the Acadians.

The Acadians built the first aboiteau on the Canning River. The bible of history buffs, Eaton’s History of Kings County, notes that the Acadians first built a dam across the river at Sheffield Mills and later placed an aboiteau at the site of the railroad bridge – the bridge that refused to budge during the 1943 collapse.

Eaton writes that this was the first aboiteau on the river and, without giving details, mentions that other seagates were later put in place. The Acadians may have attempted other aboiteaus, but history is hazy about it. We know that the Planters and other settlers who followed the Acadians realised the importance of the seagates; maintaining and replacing them as best they could. Eaton refers to several attempts after the expulsion of the Acadians to build aboiteaus.

Eaton refers to the “chief aboiteau on the river” as long being at the “present crossing of the highway from Canard to Canning.” According to Leon Barron, whose hobby is local marine history, this aboiteau was located behind the site of the current Canning Legion Hall. This was the aboiteau that went out in 1943 and while records indicate an 1854 construction date, it may have been placed originally by the Acadians.

Barron told me about a controversy over the building (or rebuilding) of this aboiteau in 1854. One faction, the farmers, wanted a new aboiteau constructed below Canning, while village merchants wanted the aboiteau left at its current site. The controversy indicates the aboiteau must have been in place for some time and probably was of Acadian origin.

Who was Kentville’s first mayor and when did he take office? Who was Kentville’s longest serving police chief? The answers to these and countless other questions anyone might have about the shiretown of Kings County can be found in the computer files of history buff and collector, Louis Comeau. Kentville’s first mayor was John W. King in 1877. Rupe Davis was Kentville’s police chief for 37 years starting in 1894.

The complete list of mayors and police chiefs is in Mr. Comeau’s database, but this is only a fraction of the information on Kentville he has collected and stored. Mr. Comeau’s artifact collection is as extensive as his database. Some 7,000 artifacts on Kentville are stored in the mini-museum of his Oakdene Avenue residence. In the museum are approximately 100 books and pamphlets, over 600 photographs dating from 1878. Old calendars, mementoes from long gone retail stores and industries, pins, badges, ledgers, signs, maps, posters, medals, watches, postcards, newspapers, souvenirs – all have found their way into the Comeau museum, which arguably is the largest historical collection on Kentville in existence.

Mr. Comeau has been refining, sorting, researching, cataloguing and writing mini-histories of the artifacts he has collected for over a quarter-century.

“I actually continued the work my father began,” Comeau said. “He started to collect historical stuff, church histories, Acadian artifacts and so on and I carried on from there.”

Dr. Lin Comeau, who practiced in Kentville from 1949 to the early ’70s, was a general collector with an interest in Kings County artifacts and collectibles. After his father’s death in 1975, Comeau concentrated solely on Kentville history and now has an in-depth overview of the town going back over 100 years.

Mr. Comeau first took an interest in his father’s collection in the early’70s. At their home on Wickwire Hill, Comeau set up an old-time country store and dentist office and a cooperage corner, depicting life as it was in Kentville before the turn of the century. “There was a lot of interest in the displays,” Comeau said, “but we eventually dismantled it. We didn’t have time to look after it.”

Most of the artifacts used in the display are still in Comeau’s possession. One that he especially prizes is a ceiling fan that was used in several Kentville stores since 1900. His most prized possession is the studio camera used by A.L. Hardy, who operated from 1892 to 1935.

Mr. Comeau is still adding to his collection and a recent acquisition was a catalogue issued by a carriage manufacturer that existed in Kentville nearly a century ago. “Even though I’ve been at it over 25 years, I’m still enthusiastic about collecting and researching,” he said.

Researching and writing brief histories of his artifacts takes up most of his free time. “You have to be a detective to date some of the items I’ve collected and sometimes I feel like Sherlock Holmes,” Comeau said. He dated an old poster, for example, by discovering that only four times in the last century could the dates advertised in it fall in July.

When Louis Pasteur put onions to the test in the mid-1800s, he discovered they were antibacterial – this is, they would kill many disease-causing bacteria.

My mother didn’t need Louis Pasteur to tell her this about onions. From the old country, she brought some strange beliefs about onions and their curative powers. Onion and vinegar drinks for head colds and flu; onion and goose grease compressed for chest colds; raw onions for sore throats; rub a raw onion on a sore joint. Name the malady and there was an onion treatment and some mumbo jumbo and superstitions to go with it.

My mother said she learned about the medicinal power of onions and other foods from Gypsies in the Kent countryside. The Gypsies also taught her to tell fortunes with tea leaves – she was amazingly accurate at this – and filled her head with superstitions she took as gospel.

Some of these superstitions concerned medicinal foods and once, for a high school project, I wrote many of them down. I still have the paper – which got an F and a note from my teacher about not having time to “read this nonsense” – and I decided to dig it out after completing last week’s column about flavonoids and food folklore. From that paper, here’s some of the old Gypsy folklore about foods, along with brief updates on the “miracles medicines” scientists believe may be found in fruits and vegetables.

“I’ve already mentioned some of the folklore about using onions to treat colds and other ailments. Most of this was pure superstition and nonsense. However, onions may be a powerful medicinal plant. Researchers believe onions may be effective in lowering cholesterol, lowering blood sugar and possibly contain ingredients that fend off cancer. Researchers have already confirmed that an ingredient in onions blocked cancer in test animals.

Beans – the Gypsy belief is that beans boiled with garlic will cure persistent coughs. Today researchers believe that various types of beans contain chemicals that inhibit cancer, lower blood pressure and reduce the “bad type” blood cholesterol.

Carrots – the old belief is that carrots will help “bad nerves”, poor eyesight, asthma and skin problems. A 1981 study examined the eating habits of 2,000 male smokers over a 19-year period and found that those who ate the least carrots were more cancer prone. This study also found that the beta-carotene in carrots may help repair cell damage after a person has stopped smoking.

Cabbage – a plant the Gypsies and the ancient Greeks and Romans revered and it may be one of the true stars of the food pharmacy. The ancient Greeks used cabbage leaves to treat wounds. In ancient Rome, the cabbage was used to treat a variety of diseases. In colonial days, the cabbage was used to treat scurvy, gout, rheumatism, tuberculosis, asthma, gangrene, diseases of the eye, sore gums and what-have-you.

Yes, say modern day researchers, the cabbage could be good medicine. There are hints that cabbage eaten on a regular basis contributes to longevity and general health. One year-long survey (1986) found that people who ate cabbage had the lowest death rate from all causes. Even fermented cabbage, sauerkraut, had the same health benefits, the survey found.

Isn’t it ironic that the experts who scoffed at folk medicine are now saying miraculous health ingredients are found in common plants?

Generations of scientists belittled the possibility that roots, barks, berries, leaves, fruits, vegetables and grasses had medicinal properties. Now look at what they’re telling us. Every time you pickup a paper or turn on the news, there’s a “new discovery” about the healing benefits in foods and plants people have been using as medicine for centuries.

Take that old saying about an apple a day keeping the doctor away, for example. We’ve all quoted this ancient saw one time or another and medical people have been laughing about it for ages. How could eating an apple by itself make you healthy.

Well… ever hear of flavonoids? An ingredient common to most fruits and vegetables, flavonoids apparently are powerful cancer fighters and may positively effect the body’s basic processes. Scientists studying flavonoids have found one that appears to ward off cancer. This flavonoid is called apegenin, and guess what fruit has an abundance of it? If you answered “the apple” go to the head of the class.

Described as powerful antioxidants, flavonoids may also be good for the heart as well by preventing damage to blood vessels. In addition to fruits and veggies, red wine is a good source of flavonoids – which may explain why countries such as France, with its high fat and high wine consumption, have a low rate of heart disease.

The discovery of the flavonoid apegenin confirms that folk wisdom in the saying about apples, except that maybe it should have been, “A flavonoid a day keeps the doctor away.” One bit of folklore about onions reducing the risk of eating fatty foods may also be accurate; onions are an excellent source of flavonoids.

Folklore and foods… some of the beliefs about the curative powers of fruits and vegetables are as ancient as the pyramids. In Greek mythology, for example, apples tasted like honey and healed all ailments. Long before the power of flavonoids was discovered, apples were believed to be effective in treating a host of ailments, including gout, rheumatism, jaundice, all liver and gall bladder problems, and nervous disorders.

The folklore about other fruits is equally as interesting as the old tales about apples. Looked upon as an aphrodisiac in medieval times, the tomato, according to folklore, is good for liver troubles, kidney problems and constipation. The folklore about prunes and their laxative powers are well known and undisputed. According to folklore, peaches and apricots also have “prune powers.”

Among the vegetables, the folklore about potatoes is the most widespread. According to old beliefs, potatoes cure dyspepsia, aid indigestion and purify the blood. Raw potato juice and hot potato water are supposed to relieve gout, rheumatism, lumbago, sprains and bruises. At one time people carried raw potatoes to ward off rheumatism – I recall this treatment being used when I was a boy.

Is the potato that powerful a food medicine? It could be. For generations people laughed at the folk tales about apple’s curative power. No one is scoffing now.

“Playing five card draw,” I said to a friend who is an avid poker player, “how many possible four-of-a-kind hands are there? I’ll bet you a coffee you can’t give me the answer in 30 seconds.”

“How about five seconds? There are 13,” came the reply. “Four Aces, four Kings, four Queens and so on.”

Try this quiz on any poker-playing friend and you’ll usually get the same wrong answer. The key words are five card draw. With any four of a kind the fifth card can change 48 times, which means there are 48 possible four Ace bands. Multiply this by 12 and you’ll see that my friend’s answer of 13 was wrong by well over 500.

As well as proving that people often don’t pay attention when you ask them something, this exercise illustrates that card playing is a complex, deceptive game.

Two of the most popular card games, poker and bridge, have so many variables that someone could play them for a lifetime (a long lifetime) and not see all the possibilities.

Card playing in all its forms has countless adherents. Starting with the kids’ games of Go Fish and Crazy Eights to the finesse games of bridge and rummy, there are hundreds, perhaps even thousands of variations. In the 1993 edition of “The Games Treasury“, the editors estimated that over three million people in North America played serious bridge and possibly three or four times that number played poker.

One of the oddest things about cards is that while there are millions of adherents and myriad variations, the basic deck has remained unchanged for centuries. Kings, Queens and Jacks have been on playing cards at least since the 14th century. The four suites have been standard on British and North American cards since the middle of the 16th century.

In fact, the cards we use in Canada today are based on a series produced in England by a manufacturer named Bamford in 1750. Bamford copied his design from a French deck that was made in 1567.

When Bamford set out to duplicate the old French deck of playing cards, he reproduced exactly the royal family found on the face cards. This deck has come down to us almost unchanged. The next time you pick up a deck of cards look at the pattern in the robe of the Queen of Clubs and the Jack of Hearts’ moustache and curly hair. These features and other designs on the face cards are identical to Bamford’s deck.

These ties with antiquity might explain some of the fascination for card playing – if it wasn’t for the fact that most people are unaware of the age of the designs or what they stand for. No, the truth is that card playing is popular because of its endless variations and complexity. Whatever your tastes, your temperament or your style, there’s a card game for you.

It may be a reflection of changing society that nowadays just as many women as men play cards. Canasta, bridge, gin rummy, poker… you name the game and you’ll find female players in many cases outnumbering males.

The biggest change may be in poker. The ladies are taking over this once male-dominated game in North America. The latest estimate claims female poker players now outnumber males five to four.

The signal from the Boston station crackled and faded in and out, but the nasal sound was unmistakable.

Twanging away on a steel guitar, his voice quavering occasionally on the higher notes, Jimmie Rodgers rendered the jailhouse song that made him famous.

Recorded in 1927, “I’m in the Jailhouse Now” became Rodgers’ signature song and brought him stardom in Canada and America. One of country music’s first recording stars, the Singing Brakeman pioneered a style of music that nowadays makes millionaires of country and western singers. Jimmie recorded the jailhouse song at his third recording session for RCA Victor and sang it throughout his career. Since Jimmie’s heyday the song has been recorded by several generations of country singers and was a bit for several stars.

The Boston station was paying tribute to Jimmie Rodgers the Saturday night I accidentally tuned in. I heard several songs by my all-time favourite singer, a rambling discussion on his life and career and a few songs by other country and western music pioneers, such as the Carter family.

Jimmie Rodgers’ career was short – he died of TB at the age of 35 – but he recorded many enduring songs. While be was hailed as the father of country music, Rodgers actually recorded a wide range of material outside this genre, including the famous blue yodels and numerous pop songs. Six years after Rodgers released “The One Rose That’s Left in My Heart” for example, Bing Crosby recorded it and had a hit.

When Jimmie Rodgers sang it sounded like he truly was picking and grinning, an American phrase country singers around here freely apply to their musical get-togethers. While he has been dead for over 60 years, Jimmie Rodgers’ voice can still be heard over the airwaves; his recordings still sell and countless fans cherish his music.

Jimmie Rodgers twanged and yodeled his way into the hearts of several generations of country music fans. But while he undoubtedly was a pioneer in the country music field and may rightfully be the father of country music, the type of songs he sang were popular well before his heyday.

Starting in 1927 the Carter Family recorded many songs that had been making the folk circuit for generations. Their 1929 recording of “I’m Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes” became a country classic. In 1923 an RCA Victor recording of Vernon Dalhart singing “The Prisoner’s Song” and “The Wreck of the Old ’97” sold six million copies. Dalhart’s nasal voice may have influenced the singing style of Jimmie Rodgers.

A song written in 1897 – “The Letter Edged in Black” – remained a country favourite in the 1920s and ’30s and was revived successfully in the ’40s by Roy Acuff. “Home on the Range”, a folk-country-western song written in 1873, was a hit before entertainers such as Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family members were born and it is still sung today.

Proof that pickin’ and grinnin’ music was definitely popular in our great grandpappy’s day can be seen in the reprints of the old T. Eaton Co. catalogues being sold in bookstores today. The 1901 edition offered numerous selections of sheet music that, by their titles, were clearly in the country and western music genre.

An amusing poem I read years ago claimed a convoluted, confusing series of town roads originated when settlers followed the tracks made by wandering animals.

The thoroughfares in the Valley aren’t that complicated, but there’s a slight similarity in origin. In many cases, the roads that connect communities with villages and villages with towns followed old trails laid down by the Micmacs and later adopted by the Acadians.

The numerous family and community histories of this area mention the old roads and trails that existed when the Planters and Loyalists set up homesteads. In Tangled Roots, for example there is a reference to an old Acadian road that ran from the Minas Basin shore to Kentville. This Bishop Family saga tells us that soon after John and his four sons debarked at Horton, they rushed to Horton Corner (Kentville) via “an old Acadian track that ran along the south bank of the Cornwallis River” to obtain their land grants.

While this was over 230 years ago, traces of this road probably still exist and some of it may be part of the current railroad bed and highway between Kentville and Horton. In fact, many of the old Micmac trails and Acadian roads still can be traced. An interesting exorcise might be to produce a map of these old thoroughfares so we could see where they were and how they influenced today’s roads. Beginning with the Micmacs, an enterprising researcher could write a fascinating history just on the old roads alone.

I’ve speculated about such a history many times and I’ve drawn up a rough plan of where I’d start. In Kings County, my history of trails and roads would concentrate on the river crossing at Kentville, the Middle Dyke road, the old trails that ran from the Minas Basin south to Wolfville and the Gaspereau Valley, and the grand road the Acadians started to build from Grand Pre to Halifax. In Hants County, the old ford on the Avon River near Windsor would require a chapter since Micmac and Acadian trails lead to it from several directions.

The site where the bridge spans the Cornwallis in Kentville is the only fordable area on the tidal section of the river and it plays an important role in the history of the area. Micmac and Acadian trails met at this ford and it maybe one of the oldest thoroughfares in the area. From the ford an Acadian trail (now part of Belcher Street) ran easterly in Middle Dyke road. Part of the Middle Dyke Road, which runs north from the Cornwallis River to the upper Habitant (Canning) River is apparently of Acadian origin. Thousands of motorists travel this road every year and I often wonder if any of them realise they are using an ancient trail.

Wolfville and the Gaspereau area once had numerous Acadian and Micmac trails and the writer of the history I have in mind would have to devote many chapters to them. One of the oldest Acadian trials may have followed what today is Willow Avenue on the east edge of Wolfville. Silver and Kirkconnell (in their book Wolfville’s Historic Homes) called it a “venerable old road to the village of Gaspereau.”

There are few traces of most of the old trails and roads but it should be possible to map out and publish the majority of them.

Moccasin Hollow lies west of Kentville, opposite the industrial park. There, historians say, a great battle took place in 1747, when the French and their Indian allies ambushed and massacred a large number of British troops.

Eaton’s History of Kings County mentions the Moccasin or Bloody Hollow massacre. There is a brief reference to the clash as well in Murdock’s History of Nova Scotia. Other writers have referred to the so-called Legend of Bloody Hollow, exaggerating the number of soldiers killed there as being in the hundreds when it seems that only a few were slain.

Minor as it apparently was, the skirmish at Moccasin Hollow gave birth to a ghost story. The Hollow is said to be haunted by the dead of the British or French troops, depending on who is telling the tale. Years ago I asked an elderly resident about the Hollow. When she was a young girl, she said, it was common on certain nights to see lights in the Hollow and hear the sounds of fighting. The area was avoided by everyone after dark. W.C. Milner (in The Basin of Minas and its Early Settlers) writes that the “battle of Moccasin Hollow” took place on the old French road near the railway and the area was commonly believed to be haunted. “It was observed,” Milner wrote, “that the boys of the neighbourhood never sought for cows or stray cattle (in the Hollow) after night fell.”

It’s a given that ghosts eventually appear in places where there have been tragedies. Recently, I heard a ghost story that was new to me. A cave along the Fundy shore near Black Rock is believed to be haunted by a maiden who was buried alive.

The details are sketchy, but a pirate hotly pursued by a British Man of War was forced to run ashore with a young woman he had captured on a raid. The pirate hid the woman in a cave he blocked up with rocks and she perished there. At high tides and the obligatory full moon, the maiden’s screams can be heard echoing along the Fundy shore.

The adventures of the notorious Captain Hall, after whom Hall’s Harbour is named, gave birth to another ghost story that, like the tale of the Black Rock maiden, is not well known.

The story of Captain Hall is well known and has been retold ad nauseam. But who has heard of the Indian maiden, the sweetheart of a young member of Hall’s crew, who perished with her lover during a skirmish with the local militia?

Writing about Hall in the manuscript mentioned above, W.C. Milner says that the maiden died when trying to warn her lover that soldiers were waiting in ambush for Hall and his crew. This is probably factual. The story that the cries of the lovers can occasionally be heard on stormy nights obviously is fiction, right? While it won’t be found in the ghost story collections that have been published, it occasionally makes the rounds.

The tale of Kentville’s Gallows Hill ghost is another story that never made it to the published collections. It’s forgotten today, but years ago I heard it told that a murderer named Bill or Powell, hanged on Gallows Hill in 1826, haunted the woods now used for a roost by crows.

Kentville on a Friday night in the early ’50s. Stores bustling with customers, streets jammed with people laughing and talking as they walked “the square”, pipes skirling, horns honking, a general air of festivity as…

Hold it. Were bagpipes actually “skirling” in downtown Kentville on its busiest night? Yes. It was a weekly ritual. Attired in his Black Watch kilt and khaki tunic, his face set in a defiant glare, Charley the “Mad Piper” hit Kentville on Friday nights and played while marching up and down Webster Street. Occasionally he walked the main square with pipes under his arm, playing whenever someone shouted, “Give us a tune.” And play he did, staying on the streets until the stores closed or the police asked him to leave. Whichever came first.

Charley was stationed at Aldershot Camp with the Black Watch and he was a marvelous piper. The pipe-sergeant of the Black Watch band said he was one of the most talented players he had ever heard and had the attributes of a champion. Fine fingers, a good ear, an exceptional memory – he could hear a tune once or twice and play it instantly. A piping fanatic, Charley lived for the pipes and piping and little else mattered.

A player with Charley’s skills would normally be welcome in the piping fraternity, but this wasn’t the case. Charley was a rebel, a non-conformist who played music his way and wouldn’t knuckle down to the rigid standards of professional band playing. Charley couldn’t – or wouldn’t – read music, a prerequisite for band players, which meant that he could only play solo, he was “mad” about piping, hence the name, but that madness and a penchant for rendering tunes in his own style and playing by ear made him an outcast.

Charley’s tale may seem to be a sad one. Here was an extremely talented piper who wouldn’t conform and had to be content with serenading unwilling Kentville shoppers and dodging the police on Friday night.

But don’t feel sorry for him. In another day, another time, Charley would have been a welcome and treasured addition to any Gaelic community, where piping and Gaelic music and dancing was a tradition. You see, Charley was a throwback. At one time there was no written pipe music. Pipers learned a tune by listening to other pipers play or by having a tune hummed or chanted to them. Figuratively speaking, traditional pipe music was passed on by word of mouth, as were folk songs and the folk tales our Gaelic ancestors cherished.

This “learning and listening” especially when it comes to piping, is a lost art. Barry Shears, one of Nova Scotia’s best pipers, notes that when all pipers played by ear it was a more lively, musical style than is heard today. Pipers around the province, and especially in Cape Breton, all played in this style at one time and it’s a method that is hundreds of years old. The ear-trained pipers of the likes of Charley, who played countless tunes from memory, where common in generations past; but, says Shears, there are few of them left today.

Barry Shears may one day write a history of piping in Nova Scotia. I wonder if Charley the Mad Piper, who once thrilled and dismayed Kentville shoppers, will somehow appear in its pages.

There are two sides to every story, goes an old truism. When it comes to history, however, there may be several descriptions of a well-known event that claim to be factual

Take the expulsion of the Acadians, for example. I have a file on the Acadians with several newspaper and magazine stories about the expulsion. One writer sympathises with the Acadians, another is anti-British, and yet another follows the middle road and attempts to present a balanced account of the event.

The writers obviously had axes to grind and may have been catering to certain groups when they prepared their accounts of the expulsion. And without a lot of research it’s impossible for average readers like you and me to determine which account is accurate and which is partly or wholly fictional.

The sad little saga of Evangeline, which occurred during the expulsion, may be another example of fiction winning out over fact. Thanks mainly to Longfellow, Evangeline’s tragic tale will forever be a part of local history. Yet there is some doubt that the events Longfellow described actually occurred or that Evangeline and Gabriel existed.

In 1955 Liberty magazine published an article by Munro Fry called “The Fantastic Evangeline Hoax.” In the article Fry claimed to have “demolished one of North America’s best-nurtured legends, the romance of Evangeline and Gabriel. Of course the magazine set the tone for the article by running a front-page lead that said the Maritimes’ most famous girl was a fantastic hoax.

In the article Fry wrote about visiting the heart of Evangeline country, St. Martinville, Louisiana, “where many of the Acadians exiled from Nova Scotia 200 years ago made their home.” There he found a massive and profitable tourist industry built around the Evangeline Legend. And he claimed to have found evidence that the story of Evangeline was a falsehood.

Fry found that other researchers – university scholars and church officials – had been to St. Martinville before him looking for an Emmeline Labiche, said to be the prototype of Longfellow’s Evangeline.

These researchers discovered, Fry said, that there never was an Emmeline Labiche and no one knows for sure who is buried n “Evangeline’s impressive tomb before which hundreds of thousands of tourists have sighed.” The tomb, Fry said, was donated by actress Dolores del Rio and her associates after a movie about Evangeline was shot at St. Martinville in 1929 (the movie has been restored and is now being shown in the province, by the way.)

Fry also gave the Louisiana version of Evangeline’s story – in which Gabriel eventually did meet the heroine only to tell her he was in love with another woman. However, Fry said this is a fabrication as well. There is no evidence of an Emmeline Labiche having lived at Grand Pre or in Louisiana.

In the same issue of Liberty was an article on the man who signed the order to exile the Acadians. The article attempted to prove that Governor Charles Lawrence was not the most black-hearted villain in Canadian history.