Exploring Grand-Pré National Historic Site

Longfellow’s poem became extremily popular with Americans, who wanted to visit the place where it was set. Nothing remained there, but John Frederic Herbin bought the land where the tragedy happened, and a commemorative church was built on the site. The church was finished in 1922, and became a museum.

The church contains specially commissioned artwork showing how events unfolded leading up to, and during, the tragic explusion of the Acadian people from Nova Scotia. 

Inside the church is a beautiful stained glass window depicting the deportation of the Acadians. 

There are beautiful gardens all around the site, making it a wonderful place to take a picnic.

It was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1847 poem Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie, that brought the forgotten plight of the Acadians to the attention of the masses who fell in love with his poem, and ultimately led to the site being created. There is a bust of him in the grounds.

The Acadians were the first people to bring apples to Nova Scotia, a fruit which is such an important crop in the area to this day. A commemorative orchard sits to the left of the church, banked by gardens planted with poppies.

When the site was purchased by Herbin, all that remained were a few stone ruins. These stones were gathered and built into this cross, then placed on the site of the old Acadian cemetary. The cross came to be known as the Herbin Cross, as a way of commemorating his work in creating the site.

Also on site is a visitors center, where you can learn about Acadian culture from their early settlements and relationships with First Nations, up to their present day descendants in Louisiana, Europe, and those scattered all over the world.