Musician Lennie Gallant is at the forefront of a resurging francophone island heritage

By CHARLES MANDEL
Special to The Globe and Mail
 

Wednesday, February 6, 2002
 

CORNWALL, PEI -- Lennie Gallant made a strange decision last year. After picking up three prizes at the East Coast Music Awards, the folksinger-turned-roots-rocker shelved all his promotional plans. Instead, he sequestered himself in the studio and began work on a CD recorded entirely in French.

The born Gallant -- who with 11 ECMA awards to his name holds more than any other solo Canadian artist -- isn't out to alienate his audience. Rather, the singer with the gritty voice and the catchy ballads believes the tentatively titled Le Vent Bohème (The Gypsy Wind)will help him realize his dream of recording in his lost mother tongue and bring him closer to his Acadian heritage. "It's important to me on more than just a career or commercial level to do it," Gallant says. "I don't really know how to explain it, except that it feels like the culmination of something I've wanted to do for a long time."

The singer isn't the only one getting in touch with Acadian roots on PEI. A mini-boom -- appropriate to the size of the tiny East Coast island -- of musicians and arts administrators are showcasing the province's Acadian heritage as they struggle to both strengthen and heighten awareness of PEI's francophone community. This summer will see more island Acadian culture than ever. Besides the numerous Acadian festivals held each summer in places like Rustico and the province's Evangeline region, the Barachois-inspired trio known as Celtitude plans to enter the studio to record its first album of traditional Acadian music. More importantly, work will continue on setting up the island's first francophone radio station.

A sense of urgency accompanies this renewed interest in all things Acadian in the province that some 6,000 French-speaking Islanders call home. Since 1961, PEI's francophone population has dropped by 61 per cent, according to The Canadian Encyclopedia. In 1991, the ratio of the Acadian population who use French as their first language was only 53 per cent in PEI, compared with 92 per cent in New Brunswick.

Robert Arsenault is co-ordinating the effort to establish the new community radio station. He envisions leasing a radio tower for $1,000 a month and then transmitting from the studio to the tower using voice-over Internet protocol technology. He's already got the station number and call letters and the go-ahead from the CRTC.

"There is a terrible communications need in French for our community to be able to reflect itself back to itself," Arsenault says. He points out the only French radio programming originates in Montreal or Moncton from Radio-Canada. That might not sound like a serious concern, but Arsenault -- whose roots extend back to the Island's first Acadian settlers in 1720 -- emphasizes the need for a local approach. He cites Cheticamp, N.S., as an example. In that Acadian community of some 4,000 people on isolated Cape Breton, some 8 per cent of the population listened to Radio-Canada's morning show before switching over to English programming. Since the establishment of a francophone radio station in Cheticamp four years ago, some 82 per cent of the people listen to French radio.

Just as important, Arsenault says, is that people are hearing about their own community. "People are listening to their stuff, their music, and they feel good about themselves."

Does that matter?

Consider that Gallant grew up in Rustico in a family of Acadian descent that traces its ancestry back to the original Gallant, Michel Haché dit Gallant, who got his name in the 1600s from bravery in battle: hence the Gallant. Three of four of Lennie Gallant's grandparents spoke French as a first language, but not his parents, nor Gallant himself.

Gallant says the village where he grew up was largely of Acadian background, but that the language was lost within a couple of generations.

"It's kind of sad in a way that it didn't take that long for the language to disappear," he says. "That's pretty typical in a lot of Acadian communities that weren't connected to a larger area that spoke French.

"But I think over the last 20 years, that's changed a lot. There's been a lot more movement to hang onto the Acadian language in these smaller communities."

It wasn't until the early 1980s, Gallant made friends with some people in the western, more francophone, end of PEI that he realized he had more in common with them culturally than with others. He says the experience was like meeting an old family friend. At the same time, as he was beginning to write songs, Gallant discovered that English rock 'n' roll didn't hold a lot of appeal for him. Rather, he looked toward bands from Quebec and France for inspiration, finding a distinct musical style that encompassed not only his Acadian heritage, but also his Canadian roots.

"I found their music represented Canada more than the English stuff and the reason for that is a lot of Canadian bands were still struggling trying to find what is Canadian identity while still trying to remain commercially viable," Gallant says. "Because of that, they were sounding a lot like music south of the border."

Instead, he discovered French artists were concentrating on what influenced their culture and were looking instead to touchstones like their environment and their heritage. It inspired Gallant, who didn't speak French, to begin learning the language.

In contrast, Emmanuelle LeBlanc and her twin sister Pastelle grew up immersed in Acadian culture in PEI's village of Mont-Carmel in the Evangeline region. Along with their friend Melissa Galant, who comes from Abrams Village (the birthplace of the renowned Acadian singer Angèle Arsenault), they formed the group Celtitude. The band, which performed at Sunday night's ECMA gala in Saint John, is steeped in Acadian culture, Emmanuelle LeBlanc says. Her father was a music teacher and her mother sang and danced. They learned to play at the island's ubiquitous house parties. "It was always our passion since we were very young to play Acadian music and it wasn't really a choice," she says. "There was just no doubt that was the music we wanted to play."

LeBlanc welcomes the idea of an island francophone radio station, saying it would keep the culture alive and serve just to spread the word out that PEI is home to a thriving Acadian heritage. "A lot of people don't really know there are French-speaking people here, so it might be a way to get them to acknowledge that. It's a good way to also get people to listen to some more music, rather than the English channels."

For Arsenault, the reasons for a station are even more compelling, more urgent.

"It's very important for Canada to maintain a vibrant, French-speaking, first-language Acadian community in PEI. It's an inherent right, a legal right, a constitutional right, as well as being a heritage treasure. If Canada can afford to keep its monuments and buildings, and can't afford to maintain a French-speaking population in PEI, it will give fodder to those who say, 'Let's go it alone.' This is what it's all about."
 
 
 

return