Token - 375th Anniversary of L'Acadie

Reverse

Profile of Samuel de Champlain facing left. Text to left and right.

Script: Latin

Lettering:
L'ACADIE
1605

Translation:
Acadia
1605

Edge

Reeded

Comment

The territory known as Acadia (L'Acadie in French) comprises large sections of modern day Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. It dates its founding to the establishment of Port Royal (near Annapolis Royal on the Nova Scotian side of the Bay of Fundy) by Samuel de Champlain in 1605. This was the first permanent European settlement in Canada. The French-speaking Acadian inhabitants of the region were for the most part neutral in the long conflicts between Britain and France in the first half of the 18th century but were nonetheless expelled by the British in 1755 after the British had established permanent control of the region. The Expulsion - Grand Dérangement in French - was immortalized in the epic poem Evangeline by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.