Moncton : News & Views
Sounds like Acadia
By Shelley Cameron-McCarron
Jul 30, 2008

It’s five minutes to 6 p.m. on August 15, the Acadian cultural holiday, and leafy Saint-Pierre Boulevard is eerily calm. Then everything changes. Church bells ring and Caraquet’s annual festival of noise, Tintamarre, erupts in a clamour. Thirty thousand strong, a sea of exuberant revellers surges onto the street. Some wear Acadian regalia, others papier mâché heads or skirts made with seaweed. Together, draped in the bleu, blanc, rouge et jaune of the Acadian flag, the eclectic crowd bangs drums and washboards, blows horns, beats frying pans and plays spoons. While some whistle, others proclaim: “We are here; we have survived.” They flood Saint-Pierre in a giant wave, just as the Bay of Fundy’s thunderous high tides tried to push away their forebears during the infamous Acadian expulsion of 1755. Two and a half centuries later, they’ll have you at first shout ( festivalacadien.ca).