Of Dykes and Pen
Acadia Past and Present
Avarice.
No other word conveys so aptly the hunger and desire that flooded me for a pen made of rotting wood.
Not just any pen, Not just any rotting wood. But a handmade pen made from a slice of Acadian wood reclaimed from an eroded section of dyke and aboiteau (sluice gate) in New Brunswick.
That I’d want such a thing, even were it only the rotting wood, was no surprise to my sister Sue. When she cleaned out our parents things after they passed in 1997, she bequeathed to me a radio last seen in our childhood — a 1960s rectangular block of distressed red leatherette held together by duct tape.
“I was going to throw it out, but then I thought of you. You’re probably the only person who can appreciate something like this.”
More likely, she remembered a mild scolding (lifelong privilege of an elder sister) for putting our mother’s well-used and battered brownie pan in a pile of objects destined for a tag sale.
“I learned to make brownies in that pan!”
“What? You can’t make brownies in another pan? Do you even make brownies anymore?”
“That’s not the point,” I’d said as I swiped the pan from the pile.
But the pen, from 300-year-old wood showing up after a hurricane eroded a marshland dyke…oh, I wanted that so much more.
That it existed came to my attention while scrolling my Facebook feed. Up popped a “you might be interested in this” post from Diane Doiron who was gifted a piece of 300-year-old tamarack wood from her friend Jean Luc Chassé.
What?! My husband and I are Jean Luc Chassé fans. We eagerly anticipate his MarshMan YouTube videos. He lives in Baie Verte NB, from where he shares his real-explorer adventures through its marshes and Acadian material culture.
That he talks a lot about Baie Verte dovetails beautifully with my desire to know more about this place. One family progenitor — Maurice Vigneault — died in Baie Verte, Acadie on Feb. 22, 1746. Maurice was a carpenter, sailor, and ship-builder. Wood mattered to him. In my imagination, he pitches in to help with dyke and aboiteau repair work. Might he have had a hand in creating whatever structure Jean Luc salvaged? It’s fun to imagine it so.
Acadians repairing a dike (aboiteau), c. 1720. Re-creation by Azor Vienneau. Source: Nova Scotia Museum, N-12,212.
Maurice and wife Marguerite Comeau were parents of ancestor Jean-Baptiste Vigneault. Jean-Baptiste and wife Agnes Anne Poirier, and their children, were likely refugees in Baie Verte after the French and Mi'kmaq burned homes in English Acadie in 1750. The family is the inspiration for a historical novel I’m working on. Baie Verte is part of the story.
So here’s Diane Doiron recycling salvage into art. Into a pen. From an area I’m writing about. Tied to ancestors who lived in the area and may have had something to do with using the wood the first time.
I have to have one!!!
Emboldened by avarice, I messaged Diane to ask her to let me know if she ever made another and wanted to sell it. Her “yes” felt like winning the lottery.
“It’s interesting how this all came together,” Sue says. “By the way, did you ever re-use the brownie pan?”
Resources
YouTube
Jean Luc Chassé videos:
Article
Origins of the Acadian Aboiteau
This is vey interesting! I recently watched some of the Jean Luc Chasse videos and am now subscribed. I see he lives at Baie Vert NB. That is a 15 minute drive on the New Brunswick side to Aulac, NB. My 6th gg Jean-Baptiste (Jean Marc) Pitre and his family took refuge at Le Lac (near Fort Beausejour) in 1752 after leaving Cobiquid earlier. I had researched for the last few years and just finished a historical chronical on my Pitre Line. I have sent a message to Diane Doiron asking if it is possible to still purchase a pen. Thanks for your story!