Lost & Found in Louisiana

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I’ve been back in Canada for almost a month. Sifting through audio recordings of my time in Louisiana, I’m transported back to Cajun country. Shuffling over corn meal on the dance floor, couples two-stepping the night away. T-fer, rub board, accordion, twin fiddles ringing through the night, the singer hollering, “Somebody scream!” 

I started the residency thinking I’d explore an endangered culture. With the French language being spoken by so few in Louisiana today, I expected to find that the culture was caught between holding onto an image fabricated for tourists – the story of Evangeline regurgitated – and a scraping together of the old ways still clinging to the sides of the cast iron pot. What I found, though, was a place that has adapted and evolved; a place where it’s possible to dig up the past through ancient ballads and stories and breathe new life into them. Keeping things moving forward by using the archives as a starting point and not as a tomb. I know there are always things lost, things forgotten. As we age, there’s only so much we can hold onto. Yet, it seems the spirit of L’Acadie burns brighter in Louisiana, with more tenacity and swagger than the L’Acadie of my ancestors in Canada.

The Pine Leaf Boys with Cedric Watson at Vermilionville during Black Pot in October 2015.

I am grateful to everyone that shared their stories with me, who shared contacts and took time to give me a window into Cajun culture in Louisiana. As the first Canadian Deltaworker, Maaike, Joris, Maggie and Dawn helped make my time in Louisiana magical. Over the coming months, I’ll be sifting through and editing the recordings for a series of radio pieces as well as an audio installation. In this clip, Bruneaux Miller describes a contraption he has rigged up to roast a large hog at Lakeview Campground outside of Eunice.