Habitation wedding
Hid in the Forest
“The Robichaud family came here from La Chaussée, France around 1642,” Lise says. “They left from the port of La Rochelle with many other (French) families and came to settle in Port Royal.”
They established themselves and became successful merchants. Even though her family later collaborated with the English, it didn’t matter. Many of the Robichauds were deported.
“I suspect they did get some special privileges and favours from the English at times. But at the end it didn’t matter. Their homes got burned just like everybody else. They had to flee. So in the end it didn’t matter.”
But her Robichaud line, with the help of the Mi’kmaq people, hid in the forest until it was safe – until the English allowed them to have land in the Baie Sainte-marie area.
“I think that was in the late 1780s and at that point they established themselves in the French shore on Baie Sainte-marie and my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather founded the village of Meteghan which was where I was born. That’s where I’m from.”
Lise says the story goes back further than Port-royal.
“Back in France, in the early 1600s, before the Lejeune and Robichaud families came over to settle in Port Royal, they actually lived in neighbouring villages,” she says. “The Lejeunes lived in Martaizé and the Robichauds live in La Chaussée which are actually only about three miles apart in France. So it’s quite possible that our ancestors knew each other, because three miles is not much.”
She believes they would have certainly known each other in Port-royal.
“I always like to say Brad is my Gabriel that I’ve been searching for since the Deportation,” she says. “We were separated through the Deportation and brought back together hundreds of years later.”
Port-royal
“People associated Port-royal with being a French settlement, but that’s not exactly true,” says Brad. “What we believe it was, was a joint venture between two people. There was an agreement between the indigenous people and the people who came. And they shared together cultural experiences, economic trade. They even married one another. I truly believe that this is the distinction between what it is to be Acadian and French.”
Later was a dark time. Le Grand Dérangement, The Great Upheaval. The Great Expulsion. The Deportation. It goes by many names. Brad calls it something else.
“It was the first time that you had government-sponsored genocide in North America,” he says of the deportation. “And it was the template that would be used across the continent after that. Despite all of the attempts to eradicate and erase the peoples that were here, both the Mi’kmaq and the Acadians, they were never able to do that. Our wedding is proof that we’re still here and we will continue to be here. This is our home. This is where we intend to marry, have children, and carry on.”
Lise believes the Acadian culture is alive and well.
“I’ve written a book. My mother’s written several and we plan to continue doing that,” says Lise. “My mother has run a theatre company to perform plays in the Acadian dialect, about the Acadian lives, about everyday things.”
Her mother, Marie-colombe Robichaud, a Chiasson from Chéticamp, wrote the book The Robicauds in Acadia and was a newspaper columnist.
‘We’re Still Here’
Lise carries on her mother’s passion.
“Now that I have eight-year-old twin girls I want to show them our living culture. I want them to experience Acadie and Port-royal,” Lise says. “I think that’s a really, really valuable thing - to be eight years old and be part of a wedding at Portroyal in 2017. I think that’s amazing. It just goes to show that Governor Lawrence failed. We’re still here.”
“Lise talks about the importance of teaching our children our culture, and that her children are eight years old,” says Brad. “Ironically this was a belief of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau when he brought his son Justin here when he was eight.”
Brad and Lise sit in front of the big fireplace in the dining room. The room is dark but it’s out of the wind. It’s safe.
The Wedding
Lise and Brad are getting married on public parkland at Port-royal at 2 p.m. on June 17. A private reception and Acadian Kitchen Party with a Cajun flare, will be held in Annapolis Royal.