Media Release

For Immediate Release

June 6, 2008

Acadian descendants support archaeology project at Grand Pre

From left to right: Professor Jonathan Fowler (Saint Mary’s University), Glenn Arseneau (Saint Mary’s), Lyne Wilson (Saint Mary’s), Jillian Fraser (University of Toronto), and Robert Shears (Saint Mary’s University and President, Nova Scotia Archaeology Society)

The American descendants of Acadians deported from Nova Scotia during the Expulsion in 1755 are helping unearth the history of their ancestors.    

This year’s winners of The Rivette Family Archaeology Scholarship awards are Lyne Wilson and Glenn Arseneau of Saint Mary’s University, and Jillian Fraser of the University of Toronto.

The students are volunteers who acquired archaeological skills through the Saint Mary's University Grand Pre Archaeological Field School program, taught by Jonathan Fowler, an Archaeology professor at Saint Mary’s.

Submissions for the scholarship awards were reviewed by the Nova Scotia Archaeology Society.

The Rivette Family Archaeology Scholarship was established in 2006 by Jeff Turner and members of the Rivette family. The Rivettes now live in the United States, but they are descendants of Etienne Rivet (1652-1705), one of the founding Acadian settlers of Piziquid, the area now known as Windsor and Falmouth. To this day, there are no Acadian Rivets (Rivette) living in the province.

In 2006, twenty-six members of the Rivette family came to Nova Scotia from Michigan, Louisiana, Texas, Colorado, Wisconsin and Illinois for the express purpose of visiting their ancestral village site located in Falmouth. While here, the Rivettes were delighted to have their emotional homecoming enhanced by information about the family’s ancestors uncovered through the historical research and archaeology of the Grand Pre Archaeological Field School program.

The purpose of the $500 scholarship awards is to offer financial support to students who are pursuing archaeological studies. It is hoped the experience gained at the Grand Pre Field School will inspire a lifelong passion for archaeology and the desire to share the knowledge acquired of the peoples of the past with their descendants and the public at large.

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For more information:

Blake Patterson
Public Affairs Officer
Saint Mary's University, Public Affairs
(902) 420.5514
E-mail: blake.patterson@smu.ca
www.smu.ca