The
Land of Evangeline

The authentic story of
her country and
her people

By

John F. Herbin

Illustrated in color
and black and white.

With

Evangeline

By

H. W. Longfellow

TORONTO
THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY
LIMITED

Copyright, Canada, 1921
THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY. LTD.
PUBLISHERSTORONTO

Third Edition
10th Thousand

Musson
ALL CANADIAN PRODUCTION

Evangeline’s Well

Evangeline’s Land is romantic and beautiful at any time, but in apple-blossom time it is adorable; a riot of blossom everywhere, of purest white, cream and shell pink, and, in the midst of it all in a little hollow or dip in the road one comes upon the tiny village of Grand Pré—straggling down a gentle slope to the basin of Minas. In the Spring the village is almost buried in blossom, and so peaceful now, tho’ the scene of so much sorrow and tragedy in the past, of which one is reminded by Evangeline’s Well, and an old stone cross, which marks the site where the village once stood. A picturesque row of ancient willows, planted by the Acadians, helps to bring back the pathos and tragedy of that time even now.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

TOURIST’S GUIDE
To The
EVANGELINE
COUNTRY

The Land of Evangeline

Grand-Pré, the home of Evangeline, seldom fails to impress the stranger, who sees it for the first time, with a sense of its rich loveliness. It would be difficult to find a more delightful setting for the story of the Acadian maiden, separated from her betrothed lover, Gabriel, and sent into exile with her people.

The country fronting the present Grand-Pré is broadly open to the Basin of Minas. The dyked marshes extend for miles in blocks of pasture, grain, and haylands. Great creeks which once the mighty tides of the Bay of Fundy filled till the meadows were submerged with the turbid waters; red channels of the winding rivers beyond; and the great stretch of the Basin of Minas, purple-fringed by the distant hills, all combine to make this an idyllic setting.

At the time of the Deportation of the Acadians, in 1755, most of the farm land, flanked by the dyked meadows, from the Gaspereau River to Kentville, held the villages and small hamlets of the people. Upon the descending slopes on both sides of the Gaspereau Valley that lies south of Grand-Pré, other populous villages, pastures and farms, clustered as far as the present village of the name, Gaspereau.

North and west, as far as Pereau, under the North Mountain, the rich Acadian country of Canard lay upon the banks of the four rivers, fronting always the meadows of marsh that spread away from the swift tidal streams.

This was the Minas country of the Acadian period, divided into two parishes, Grand-Pré and Canard, separated by the present Cornwallis River. In 1750, five years before the removal of the inhabitants, Minas had a population of four thousand. There were thirty-five villages, named after the original founders who came from Port Royal—Gaspereau and Grand-Pré were the only exceptions.

Upon the Grand-Pré meadows may be seen the thirteen sections of dykes raised from time to time, till the whole extent of marsh became enclosed. It was a laborious work for the people, who numbered only four hundred in 1700. Most of the marshes were enclosed during the following forty years as the families grew to