Nowadays hundreds of unidentified photos tend to pile up in our computers and telephones. This book on the Acadians of Prince Edward Island shows the cultural and historical importance of carefully documented and organized collections of photos. From some points of view this book is like an old-fashioned family album, except that it illustrates the ordinary life of not just one but many Acadian families. In most cases the photos are informal snapshots taken by Acadians themselves over a time period stretching from the late 1800s to the 1960s. All these snapshots take us back to the olden days of large families and subsistence farming when the church was the centre of village life. Georges Arsenault has created a fascinating portrait of Island Acadians of yesteryear.

Georges Arsenault is a prominent Acadian historian and folklorist who has been writing about the Acadians of Prince Edward Island since the early 1980s. His landmark book, Les Acadiens de l’Île, 1720-1980, won both the Champlain and France-Acadie prizes. In 2002, he wrote Acadian Legends, Folktales and Songs from Prince Edward Island, and with the publication of Acadian Christmas Traditions in 2007, he expanded his research to include Acadian traditions throughout Eastern Canada. The original French version of this book, La Mi-Carême en Acadie (published by La Grand Marée), received the 2008 Prince Edward Island Book Award. Sally Ross is an historian and translator from Nova Scotia. She has translated three other books by Georges Arsenault: The Island Acadians, 1720-1980 (Ragweed Press, 1989); Acadian Legends, Folktales, and Songs from Prince Edward Island (Acorn Press, 2002); and Acadian Christmas Traditions (Acorn Press, 2007).

Georges Arsenault's profile page