Audioscript

The main celebrations, the main Acadian celebrations on the island are held for instance on the 15th of August like other places in the Maritime Provinces. More and more you’ll see concerts or get-togethers for that special day the 15th of August and then we still celebrate to a certain extent certain traditional feasts. Until the late 1940s until the 1940s there was this custom of doing house visits on the 2nd of February, la chandeleur. Young men used to dress up and collect food from house to house for the poor people, there was a leader carrying a pole with a rooster on top of it and the other guys would be dressed up and then at the end of the day there would be a party in the house. So that was an important activity or a festivity during the year and it died out in the 1940s but it was revived in the 1990s in the Evangeline area. So every year now around the 2nd of February they still do that food collection for the poor people and then they have a concert or a feast in a community hall, so that’s still going on.

Mi-carême, mid-lent used to be quite popular in certain areas in PEI, it has died out, the tradition of going from house to house masked, but in the West Prince area in Tignish and Palmer Road, there’s one tradition associated with mid-lent, with mi-carême that has never died out and it’s the only place in the world I think that they still do it. At mi-carême, families that have small kids they have a mi-carême, a person dressed as a mummer that comes to the door and brings treats to children who have behaved, those who have not behaved they could be kidnapped by that vicious character. So that’s still alive in certain families, and as I said it’s the only place in the world where it survived, it’s an old French tradition, something of the sort existed in France in Normandy and Brittany up to the turn of the 20th century, but today I think it’s only in PEI that it’s still going on. And of course the major Acadian celebrations here on the island now would be our festivals and mainly the Evangeline region Acadian Festival and Agricultural Fair, which is quite old. The fair itself started in 1903 and the Acadian Festival, the cultural part of the event was started in 1971, it has become a major attraction not only for islanders but for people from New Brunswick and other parts of the Maritimes and the country and it’s a big celebration of especially the Acadian culture here on the island.

The blessing of the boat is an old tradition, I don’t know where it comes from and I don’t know if it has always existed but at least from the turn of the 19th, the 18th century, it’s an old tradition that dates back, I don’t know how back – how back yeah… The blessing of the boat was a tradition that was quite popular in Acadian area where there was a lot of fishermen, I don’t know how old it is but I know it was being done already around 1900 and today it used to be held the Sunday before the blessed, before the start of the fishing season. It used to be held just the Sunday before the beginning of the lobster fishing season and the fishermen would decorate their boats, they would sail their boats near the shore where the church stood, the priest would come out all dressed with his liturgical garbs and bless the boats, there would be singing prayers whatever. Today it’s, this big ceremony is not held anymore; the priest in certain areas still goes to the wharf and does a private blessing of the boat before the lobster fishing starts but it’s not broadcast anymore. Sometimes it’s still organized as a big event but usually it’s in the context of a celebration you know a centennial or bicentennial. One thing which is, one event that’s held at the wharf which is not the blessing of the boat but people associate it to it is the mass which is celebrated onboard a boat at one of the wharfs in the Evangeline area during the Acadian Festival at the end of the summer. They don’t bless the boats but they celebrate mass, the choir is there and there’s hundreds, thousands of people on the wharf so it’s become the main activity for fishermen as far as a religious ceremony is concerned.
 

Additional Resources:

Blessing of the boats, Mont-Carmel, P.E.I.

Candlemas (La Chandeleur), Abram-Village, P.E.I.

Candlemas (La Chandeleur), Mont-Carmel, P.E.I.

Twelfth Night, Summerside, P.E.I.

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