See also: Part 1 Destination: Saint Pierre et Miquelon Part two | Part 3
Valuable information, and incredible photos, about mankind's inhumanity to mankind on this post - in a current framework. The anti-French sentiment in the US is palpable. What a difference in Canada, with its bilingual status.
Our trip to Halifax, NS, helped me understand a bit more of Canada's history. The memorial to dead fishermen. The memorial for those on the Titanic.
Our terrible history in Canada, of treatment of First Nations Peoples, and the internment of Japanese-Canadians after Pearl Harbour, to name just two categories, bars us from any finger pointing, however. Those who died building the railroad across Canada, and the many, many Chinese who faced a head tax.
While some like to hold up the Underground Railroad to make the French and British settlers feel better, in fact very few blacks in the grand scheme of things sought sanctuary through this route.
The story of the Underground Railroad is a proud moment in Canadian history, but Canada had 200 years of a history of slavery. We've even made a patriotic commercial about it.
For another good read:
Evangeline - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A Tale of Acadie is a poem published in 1847 by the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The poem follows an Acadian girl named Evangeline ...
I'm afraid neither of our nations has a very humanitarian past, Jenn. White men weren't nearly as civilized as they fancied themselves, were they?
ReplyDeleteI answered your comments on my blog but in case you don’t go there I said that I knew the tale of Evangeline and have the book of poems by Longfellow. On our trip back from the Maritimes we are stopping in Portland, Maine, and I hope we will be able to go and visit his home. I did not know you had this blog also as I usually read your my Muskoka blog only. This blog looks so very interesting but I must not start to read it because the suitcases are open and I need to fill them quickly for our trip. So I’ll be back to read it when we are back. We went to Newfoundland last year when we went to St Pierre et Miquelon. This time we are going on a cruise stopping in Saint John, NB, Sydney Cape Breton, Charlottetown, PEI , Halifax and Portland. It was a great deal that we could not duplicate on our own, and it will give us an idea of the area so that we may go back later on our own. A bientôt et merci encore.
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