Growing up as an Anglophone, Tyler LeBlanc hadn’t always known the true history of his ancestors. It wasn’t until he was in his early twenties, when asked by a historian what he knew about his lineage, that LeBlanc began to seriously dig into his ancestry and question the stories he had grown up believing. What he discovered set into motion years of research.
Providing a unique, more personal perspective to the Acadian Expulsion, LeBlanc dives deep into his ancestral history in his latest book, Acadian Driftwood. Following the interconnected but separate stories of a number of LeBlanc’s distant relatives, Acadian Driftwood wraps readers in the severity of Acadian suffering and the strength of the Acadian soul.
Published 250 years after the Expulsion of 1755, the book tells the grisly tale of how one family was torn apart by British colonizers, shipped off, made to live in deplorable conditions and still somehow made it (though not fully) out the other side.
“This book looks at the event from the point of view of those who experienced it,” writes LeBlanc. “It is not a grand history of the Acadian Experience. I’m not a historian, and I have no thesis to advance.”
Able to retrace his family tree back to the 1620s, LeBlanc focusses the book on a group of his relatives who were alive in the early 18th century. After finding information on his great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather, Joseph LeBlanc, our author was also able to trace the stories of 9 of Joseph LeBlanc’s 12 siblings, who were directly impacted by the Expulsion. Each of those 10 stories makes up its own chapter, in which we read vivid descriptions of how their individual journeys unfolded and to what parts of the globe they were cast.
Because the siblings either fled or were captured and shipped off into many different directions during the Great Deportation, the stories are diverse enough to paint a vast picture of the events of those years. Emphasizing the hardships endured and Acadian resiliency, LeBlanc engages readers and bring his ancestors back to life to tell their harrowing story.
And he doesn’t spare the gory details. Descriptions of how, “in the eyes of the council, they were the perceived disease, and their placement in the pesthouse was to prevent their contaminating the good people of the city”; and of how “over and over again the ships climbed walls of water while their occupants — prisoners and crew alike — feared that the next ridge would be too high and send them over backwards, plunging beneath the waves” are just the tip of the iceberg.
Acadian Driftwood stands out among other books about the Great Deportation for its unique perspective and its entertaining readability. “The Expulsion of the Acadians from their homeland had a direct effect on over fifteen thousand people, yet we know very few of their personal stories,” adds LeBlanc. And those personal stories worm their way into our hearts with much more force than anything impersonal we might read on the topic.
But for being told through the lens of a single family, the book depicts a surprisingly expansive image of what Acadians experienced centuries ago. LeBlanc draws readers in with well-written and gripping prose in the way you would expect from a fiction novel, but he adds an educational punch.
The ease of consumption and digestion of this book makes it a great starting point for anyone looking to explore the topic, and the new angle it takes in telling an age-old story makes it even more of a must-read for already-savvy historians.
At times, due to frequent name carryover throughout generations and its non-entirely-linear format, the familial narrative in the book can be hard to follow. I found myself frequently referring back to the character guide at the front of the book and second-guessing each person’s relation to the other. Each chapter is best looked at as a singular unit instead of part of a cohesive whole.
The LeBlancs were far from the only family to experience the hardships of the Expulsion, but their stories speak to all Acadians, whether still here in Canada, on the Atlantic coast of the United States, in the Caribbean or returned to France.
Acadian Driftwood leaves readers with a thirst to continue their research into such an important piece of our region’s history and one of humanity’s most nightmarish acts.
Tyler LeBlanc’s Acadian Driftwood can be purchased online via Goose Lane Editions.