Although the Acadians were driven from the famous Land of Evangeline in 1745 their traditions and culture still live on in many a little French village in Nova Scotia that even now is not unlike the Grand Pre  of the days when France ruled the new land.

Many of them found their way back to their beloved Acadia and others fled to settle in remote parts of what was then a wild country. Of these French villages one of the quaintest Is the little town of Clare where words written a century ago by a traveler still hold true today. This foreign visitor to Clare in 1835 wrote, “The moment a traveler enters Clare the houses, the implements of husbandry, the foreign language, and uniform but peculiar dress of the inhabitants excite his surprise that any township in Nova Scotia should possess such a distinctive character."

A later visitor to Clare found that these French Acadians, in the words of the earlier traveler, “still preserve their language and their customs with peculiar attachments and though their traffic naturally leads them to an intercourse with the English, they never intermarry with them, adopt their manners or move into their villages. This does not arise from an aversion to the English government, but is ascribable rather to habit, national character and their system of education."

Few debts haunt these descendants of the original French settles of Acadia. Their more progressive English or Scotch neighbors may use the tractor and automobile, but for them the ox drawn plow and the horse suffice. The aura of the romantic land Longfellow wrote about still hangs over their villages.

Reference: LeBaron & Nissly. (1936, January 23). "French Acadian Villages Live On in Nova Scotia." The Saline Observer of Washtenaw, Michigan. No. 16. Page 6. Link to the article