About Visitez-Nouvelle-Écosse
This is not a tourism campaign. It is a community telling its own story, and inviting you in.
Why Visitez Nouvelle-Écosse
For a long time, Acadian Nova Scotia was one of the best-kept secrets in Canadian tourism. Not because there was nothing to discover; there was, and there is, an extraordinary amount. Eleven living communities. Four centuries of continuous Acadian culture. A language, a cuisine, a music tradition, and a set of festivals that rival anything in Atlantic Canada. UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Working fishing villages where families have lived on the same homesteads for eight generations.
"When you plan your journey through Acadian Nova Scotia using this website, you are not reading marketing copy. You are reading a community introducing itself."
CONSEIL DE DÉVELOPPEMENT ÉCONOMIQUE DE LA NOUVELLE-ÉCOSSE
The problem was not the content. It was the storytelling. Mainstream tourism tended to describe Acadian Nova Scotia in passing, as a footnote to the Cabot Trail or a qualifier on the phrase "French-speaking communities." The communities themselves had no unified voice, no single digital home, no place where a curious traveller could arrive and understand the full scope of what Acadian Nova Scotia is and why it matters.
Visitez NÉ was built to be that place.
It exists because the Acadian communities of Nova Scotia deserve to be understood on their own terms, not explained through someone else's framework, not reduced to a heritage footnote, and not conflated with other expressions of French-speaking culture in Canada. Acadian culture is its own thing, with its own history, its own dialect, its own music, its own food, and its own identity that has survived, and in many places thrived, through four centuries of extraordinary pressure. This website is how that culture invites the world in.
About CDÉNÉ
Visitez Nouvelle-Écosse is produced by CDÉNÉ, the Conseil de développement économique de la Nouvelle-Écosse.
CDÉNÉ was founded with a single conviction: that Nova Scotia's Acadian and francophone communities deserve the infrastructure, the resources, and the platform to thrive on their own terms. For more than three decades, it has worked alongside those communities across economic development, business support, language promotion, immigration, and tourism, not as an outside agency managing a file but as an organization that is rooted in the communities it serves and accountable to them directly.
More than 35,000 Nova Scotians call Acadian French their first language. They live in fishing villages on Cape Breton Island, in farming communities along Saint Mary's Bay, in the smallest coves of the Eastern Shore, and in the provincial capital. CDÉNÉ exists to ensure that their economic and cultural life is supported, visible, and sustainable, and that the world knows they are here.
ORGANISATION
Conseil de développement économique de la Nouvelle-Écosse
1809 Barrington Street, Office 902
Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3J 3K8
What Is Acadian Culture, and Why Does the Word Matter?
The Acadians are the descendants of French colonists who arrived in Atlantic Canada beginning in the early 1600s, making them one of the oldest continuously present French-speaking populations in North America. Their first permanent settlement was established at Port Royal (now Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia) in 1605. Over the following century and a half, Acadian communities spread along the coasts of what are now Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, building a distinctive civilization rooted in fishing, dyke-based agriculture, trade, and an exceptional relationship with the Mi'kmaq people who had inhabited these lands for millennia before European arrival.
LE DRAPEAU ACADIEN
The Acadian flag was adopted in 1884.
The gold Stella Maris star distinguishes it from the French tricolour, representing Our Lady, Star of the Sea.
In 1755, the British colonial government ordered the expulsion of the Acadian people from their lands — an event known as the Grand Dérangement, or the Great Deportation. More than 10,000 Acadians were forcibly removed from their homes and scattered across British colonies, France, the Caribbean, and what is now Louisiana in the United States (where their descendants became known as Cajuns). Many died during the deportation. Those who survived carried their language, their traditions, and their identity with them. Beginning in the 1760s, many returned, settling in the coastal margins of what remained available to them, and rebuilding communities that had to start again from almost nothing.
Those communities are the ones on this website. They are the direct cultural descendants of the people who were expelled. Their language is the same Acadian French dialect, shaped by centuries of evolution in isolation from both France and Québec. Their music draws on the same traditions. Their food carries the same flavours. And their identity, Acadian, is a specific, living, historically rooted thing that is distinct from French Canadian, Québécois, Cajun, or any other expression of French heritage in North America.
Why we always say Acadian, not "French culture" or "French-speaking."
This website uses "Acadian" as the primary identity word throughout, deliberately and consistently. "French-speaking" describes a linguistic characteristic. "French culture" points toward France. Neither phrase captures what the communities like of Chéticamp, Isle Madame, Par-en-Bas, Clare, or Pomquet actually are: Acadian. That word carries a specific history, a specific geography, a specific survival story, and a specific pride. It is the word the communities use for themselves. We use it too.
Our Partners
Visitez NÉ is made possible through the support of:
The provincial tourism agency, whose support enables the development and promotion of Acadian tourism experiences across the province.
A national initiative celebrating French-speaking communities across Canada, of which Acadian Nova Scotia is a proud and central part.
Through federal programming in support of official language minority communities, which includes the Acadian and francophone communities of Nova Scotia.
We are grateful for the partnership of these organisations and for the confidence they place in the communities this website represents.
For Journalists & Travel Writers
If you are writing about Acadian Nova Scotia and have arrived on this page looking for background, factual grounding, or contact information for community representatives, welcome, and thank you for taking the care to get it right. If you are writing about Acadian Nova Scotia and have arrived on this page looking for background, factual grounding, or contact information for community representatives, welcome, and thank you for taking the care to get it right.
LANGUAGE
Use "Acadian" as the primary identity descriptor. "French-speaking Nova Scotians" is acceptable as a demographic descriptor. "French culture" alone is not accurate — it points toward France rather than toward the specific Acadian heritage that defines these communities.
HISTORY
The Great Deportation of 1755 (Le Grand Dérangement) is central to understanding Acadian identity. It is not ancient history, it is living memory in communities where the same family names appear in the original settlement records of the 1600s and on today's fishing boat registrations.
THE COMMUNITIES
They are not theme parks or heritage reconstructions (with the specific exception of the heritage sites at Grand-Pré, Port Royal, and Louisbourg). They are working communities with working economies, active cultural organisations, and real people who welcome visitors as guests rather than as an audience.
MEDIA & PRESS INQUIRIES
Contact CDÉNÉ directly at info@cdene.ns.ca or 1-866-55CDENE
Come as a Visitor.
Leave Feeling Like You Belong.
That is what Acadian Nova Scotia offers — and it is not a marketing line. It is what visitor after visitor describes when they come back from Chéticamp or Isle Madame or Par-en-Bas. The communities are generous with their time, their food, their music, and their stories. The landscapes are extraordinary. The history is the kind that stays with you.
You do not need to speak French to visit. You do not need a cultural background in Acadian history. You do not need anything other than a willingness to show up, slow down, and pay attention.
The communities will do the rest!