Landscape of Grand Pré

• Official name: Landscape of Grand Pré
• Location: King’s County, Nova Scotia, Canada
• Year of inscription: 2012

The Landscape of Grand Pré, French for “large meadow,” is a lowland region in the Annapolis Valley area of Nova Scotia, Canada. Grand Pré is a polder, a low-lying area that was once underwater, but was reclaimed from the sea by the building of dikes and being drained. The region is on a peninsula that cuts into an inlet of the Bay of Fundy called the Minas Basin. The area was inhabited by the Indigenous Mi’kmaq people for thousands of years.

In the early seventeenth century, the region saw an influx of Europeans, many of them French. The original settlers and their descendants, known as Acadians, constructed a system of dikes, ditches, and a drainage network in the region to create a fertile and rich land. Their settlement in the area grew to become the largest community around the bay by the eighteenth century. As time went on, those who came to live on the land would expand and improve on the already existing system, which remains in operation. The area was designated a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site in June 2012. UNESCO noted the Landscape of Grand Pré is of great cultural importance in that it provides a rare glimpse of how the first European settlers adapted to life in the North Atlantic region of North America.

History

Long before the Europeans came to North America, an Indigenous people called the Mi’kmaq lived along the North Atlantic coastal region of North America. Archaeological evidence suggests the Mi’kmaq may have lived in the region from four to ten thousand years. Their traditional homeland consists of modern-day Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, along with parts of New Brunswick, Quebec, and Maine. The area was rich in natural resources such as lumber and boasted a wide range of animal and aquatic life.

The Mi’kmaq were a semi-nomadic people who moved with the seasons. In spring and summer, the Mi’kmaq lived close to the water, where they would catch and subsist on a wide array of wildlife. In the fall and winter, the people moved deeper into the interior and survived on land animals. The resourceful Indigenous people also crafted everything they needed from the land to make clothes, tools, canoes, and homes. This being the case, the people developed a close relationship with their land.

The first Europeans in the region may have been the Vikings, who briefly established a settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland about the year 1000. The Vikings claimed to have landed in a place they called Vinland because of its wild grapes. However, grapes do not grow in Newfoundland, leading some historians to speculate they may have also landed on Prince Edward Island or Nova Scotia.

In 1497, John Cabot, an Italian explorer sailing for Great Britain, landed in the region and claimed it for Britain. For the next century, other European explorers followed, although no permanent settlements were established in the region. Being that the Mi’kmaq lived close to the Atlantic Ocean, they were likely the first North American people to encounter these explorers. While these interactions brought opportunities for trade, they also resulted in disease and death for the Mi’kmaq. By some estimates, European illnesses, to which Indigenous North Americans had no natural immunity, killed up to half the Mi’kmaq population from 1500 to 1600.

The French were the first to colonize the region when Pierre de Monts and Samuel de Champlain established settlements at St. Croix Island in Maine and Port-Royal in Nova Scotia in 1604. For most of the next century and a half, the British and French vied for control of the region. The Mi’kmaq were on friendly terms with the French Acadians. They joined with four other Algonquian-language nations to form an alliance called the Wabanaki Confederacy. Together with the French, the confederacy fought off British forces for approximately seventy-five years.

However, the British eventually came out as victors in the fight for Atlantic Canada during the course of the French and Indian War (1754–1763). In 1755, British forces began expelling the Acadians from the region in an event called the Grand Dérangement. Some of the deportees ended up in the thirteen American colonies. Some went to the Caribbean, others fled to France, and some went to Louisiana, where the name Acadians would transform into Cajuns. In 1764, the Acadians were allowed to return in small numbers, with the caveat that those returning take a pledge to maintain loyalty to Britain.

However, in the intervening years, British military officer Charles Lawrence, the mastermind behind the Grand Dérangement, had been promoted to governor of Nova Scotia in 1756. He began to focus his energies on transplanting the New England Planters, British settlers of the New England colonies, to the region that was vacated by the Acadians. This forced the returning Acadians to move to the west coast of what is now Nova Scotia, where they would struggle in poverty into the twentieth century. In the 1930s, Acadian cooperative groups began to help pull the Acadians from hardship and distress.

A number of monuments and memorial structures were constructed in and around the Landscape of Grand Pré to commemorate the history of the region. Many of the monuments are in Grand Pré village and Hortonville/Horton Landing. One, a bronze statue that sits in front of Memorial Church on the Landscape of Grand Pré World Heritage Site, depicts the title character from “Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie,” an epic poem by American Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1847. The poem tells the fictional story of an Acadian housekeeper named Evangeline as she searches for her love during the time of “The Great Expulsion.” The poem was a major reason the awareness of the Acadians came to light. The statue itself has come to be a symbol of the persistence and determination of the Acadian people and memorializes the thousands who were expelled.

Significance

Due to its geography on an inlet of the Bay of Fundy in the southern Minas Basin, the Landscape of Grand Pré sits in a coastal zone that experiences tides that are the highest in the world. Bay of Fundy tides average about 47.6 feet (14.5 meters) from high tide to low tide, but they can vary as much as 53.3 feet (16.3 meters).

To combat this, the Acadians cleverly devised a system of wooden sluices, dikes, and ditches in the late seventeenth century to keep the dangerous tides at bay. This system was improved upon over the years by the British, the New England Planters, and the Scottish, English, and Dutch immigrants who came after them. The system reclaimed about 5 square miles (13 square kilometers) of farmland from the sea, showing how early settlers adapted to new environments at a time of limited technology.

The Landscape of Grand Pré includes the reclaimed farmlands and the monuments that honor the Acadians and memorialize their expulsion. The area was given UNESCO World Heritage status in 2012 after the organization found the site met two of its ten criteria for inclusion on the World Heritage List.

The first criterion is that the site is an “outstanding example of a traditional human settlement, land-use, or sea-use which is representative of a culture (or cultures).” UNESCO noted that the reclamation project begun by the Acadians and continued by successive generations is a prime example of a traditional farming method born of necessity in the region’s unique environment. The system of dikes and drainage methods created valuable farmland that continues to be used in the modern era.

The second criterion is that Grand Pré is an example of a cultural tradition that has “outstanding universal significance.” In this case, the site is a living reminder of the Acadians and their ingenuity and resourcefulness. The site also calls to mind the relationship the Acadians had with the Mi’kmaq and how the two cultures worked together. UNESCO also mentioned that the modern memorials to the Acadians are a symbolic way for them to reclaim their former homeland.

The Canadian government also granted the Landscape of Grand Pré national historic status. Canada noted the site as a place where history and nature intersect and where people both engaged in battle against nature and co-existed with it. Although the site may seem to be simple farmland, the people of the region find it a spiritual setting as well as a place of reflection and remembrance. Conservation work continued at the site, which attracted tourists looking to learn about Acadian history and culture and also participate in agritourism. 

Bibliography

Arndt, Gary. “Landscape of Grand Pré.” Everything Everywhere, everything-everywhere.com/unesco-world-heritage-site-190-landscape-of-grand-pre. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.

“Bay of Fundy Tides: The Highest Tides in the World!” Bay of Fundy, www.bayoffundy.com/about/highest-tides. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.

“Culture and History: Grand-Pré National Historic Site.” Parks Canada, 8 Mar. 2024, www.pc.gc.ca/en/lhn-nhs/ns/grandpre/culture. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.

Gallant, David Joseph. “Mi'kmaq.” Canadian Encyclopedia, 6 Feb. 2024, www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/micmac-mikmaq. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.

“Landscape of Grand Pré.” UNESCO World Heritage Centre, whc.unesco.org/en/list/1404. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.

“Landscape of Grand Pré UNESCO World Heritage Site.” Nova Scotia, www.novascotia.com/see-do/attractions/landscape-of-grand-pre-unesco-world-heritage-site/7754. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.

“Things To Do: Grand-Pré National Historic Site.” Parks Canada, 22 Mar. 2023, www.pc.gc.ca/en/lhn-nhs/ns/grandpre/activ. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.