Doomed to Fail - Ep 31: The Truth About Cajuns: The story of the Acadians

Episode Date: July 17, 2023

This week we’re going up the Canadian coastline to tell the story of The Expulsion of the Acadians. French immigrants to the Americas just wanted to live their lives, be friends with the natives, and stay with their families (that’s oversimplifying it, but you get it). Of course, religion and the government decided to ruin the party for everyone, and A LOT of people died. Join us for this week’s historical tragedy, it’s quite sad.  Photos from the creative commons & AIInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpodEmail: [e-mail] source:A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from Their American Homeland: Faragher, John Mack: 9780393328271 Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail] 

In a matter of the people of the state of California, first is Hortonthal James Simpson, case number B.A.019. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. Okay. We are recording. I'm going to go in and kick us off. Welcome to Doom to Fail, the podcast with now one story about something historical or something true prime, released twice a week. about red flag you relationships hosted by myself Fards and Taylor.

Hi, Taylor. Hello. I was doing jazz hands for the non-visual portion of this, just to say how excited I am to be here with you. We are getting, we're hitting our stride, I think, Taylor. Like, you know, we, your husband, Juan, kudos to Juan, had a fantastic idea in terms of splitting up the podcast, making it more digestible, releasing them more times a week.

And I think that's helping out tremendously. So thank you, Juan, for, that suggestion thank you one you the best we are also putting together some guerrilla marketing tactics i told taylor that this last week i guess thursday i was on a thursday or went i don't know whatever last week sometime i was on a date and it was the first date and i grabbed my date's phone and just asked her to point me to whatever podcast service she listens to and she was she's an apple podcast listener which is nice that's what we need it's what we need but it's also crazy we're So I found us on there.

I subscribed her to it. And I was like, how do I rate us? And she's like, I don't know. And then Taylor, like, I come home and we're like, I'm just going to leave it. I get home. A minute after I get home, Taylor's like, bars, we need some Apple five star reviews on the podcast. I said it's a national emergency. It's a national emergency.

And Taylor, I was like, Taylor, I literally just did this on someone's phone. And I could not see how to do their reviews. They don't make it easy. They don't make it easy. You have to scroll to the bottom, and that's where you can see the stars. And so if you have Apple, Steve Jobs. Seriously, even if you don't listen to podcasts on Apple, we would really, really appreciate it. If you just review us on there. Yeah, I feel like I hear all the time on podcasts, like, it helps people find the show, but it really does.

And please, dude, we had two one star reviews. I guess I shouldn't like announce or talk about, really. It's like, when I'm wearing something that's cute and someone like, that's cute. And I'm like, thanks, it was $3. I'm like, don't say that. say thank you it was expensive but like when i would show like i don't i shouldn't be like yay we have we have one-star reviews help but we have two which is bummer and they don't they didn't say anything at least be like they talk too fast whatever there's not but there's no reason to do that please

help us please go as a five-star this was terrible this i was thinking like what if i work in marketing i'm like i'm so bad at marketing you're really bad at marketing you're really you've You've grown up so many times. Please make me stop talking right now. Somebody interject and get down to stop talking. Somebody make me stop talking. Oh, my God. Please, whatever.

Okay, I'm done. It's like if somebody's like, it's like, it's like, I'll cover my mouth, I'll stop talking about this. It's like, Faris, things are going so well for you. Like, you seem to be living like your best life. It's like, yeah, thanks. You know, my organs are failing right now.

Anyways, how are you? It's like, no, just pick it. Anyways. We'll work on our marketing efforts. We will. I just take a good class. So just not being honest all the time is the name of the class. Exactly.

Taylor, what who? Now that we changed this form, I mean, I'm even more confusing before. I go first this time. Me. Okay, you are first. Okay. So I'll share what I'm drinking, the drink of the day. It is electrolyte water along with Diet Coke.

I'm being healthy. I'm in Dallas. And when I'm in Dallas, I tend to be a little more on the healthy side. and so that is what I'm drinking the time being great for my story we are drinking Molson isn't Molson the Canadian beer Molson's Yeah yeah we're going to Canada

Is this for Nadine? It is Nadine also wrote back I will I think I wrote it down So she When you said there's not a lot of crime in Canada I was like there's no way that's true Because there's like so many so much I think there's a bunch of stories

And she agreed with me even though I saw that in my head and sent me a bunch of stories for you. So I'll forward it to you. It's not crime in Canada. It's said it doesn't get the kind of coverage and media play that ours gets, which makes it incredibly hard to research. And like, you know, it's funny you brought that up because I started researching pretty bad crimes in the U.S. for mine.

And I didn't go with them. But they were crimes that were committed against like what, like a lot of folks, including our favorite podcast, last podcast calls The Less Dead, which are like sex workers and minorities and stuff like that. And there's a lot of them. I mean, that's what most time is at this point. But it doesn't get much media coverage because nobody cares about these people. And it's like, and then there's a bi-product of that is that in Canada.

It's not that nobody cares about people or Canadian. It's more like it's not as big of a media clickbait demographic as it is like what's going on in the U.S., for example. But I would love to see that list whenever you can share it with me. I will. I will. Cool. Well, I have a Canadian story that I thought of when she mentioned Canada. And I know that a long time ago, you asked me to tell you a Persian story and I'll get there. But I just jumped in and come up on this Canadian story. I don't remember asking that, but I believe you. Okay. I was thinking about something in Canadian history that is terrible. And it's a terrible relationship between a group of people and another group of people. So I'm going to talk about the 1755 expulsion. of the Acadians. Have you heard about this? No. No, it sounds like a cool video game, though. It does kind of sit a cool video game. My main source is a book called A Great and Noble Scheme, The Tragic story of the Appulsion of the French Acadians, expulsion of the French Acadians

from their American homeland. And let me tell you, it was dry. I was like, oh my God. I don't know why I was so dry, but I could, like, I barely finished it. I finished it this morning. But let's start. So you've been to Canada. Yes. I've never been to Canada. Have you been to Maine that is on Canada? Yeah. Yeah. I've been to Bangor. Oh, okay, cool. For a Stephen King of you. We had relatives that lived in Bangor. And at that time, I was a kid when I visited. So I didn't even know who Stephen King was. And later on I learned, it was like, oh, my God, I should have tried to find this guy's house. I unfollowed literally everyone on Twitter from my personal account and deleted all my tweets, except for the ones where I say that Cocoa Chanel was a Nazi and the only people on following are us, my husband and Stephen King. Makes sense.

I'm about to like be my brand. So I've never been up there, but I'm talking, we're in the area that's like Maine and above Maine is like Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, the east coast of Canada is where we are right now. In 1604, the French came to that part of Canada 14 years before the Mayflower. So they were there a lot earlier than the British were. up in that northern part of the continent. And they were farmers and they were fur traders.

I feel like my point of reference for a French fur trader are the terrible French guys in the Revenant. Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking. Yeah, that's exactly what I think all the time. I use Revenant as a measure of cold. So if I'm cold, I'll be like, I'm Revenant cold right now. Like I am cut open a horse and soup inside of it gold. So anyway, per trade.

Acadia is that area up there. So, like, there's a lot of, like, French words and, like, in the book, they say, like, La Canadi a lot, which I'm not even sure what that means. I think it's, like, part of Canada and, like, I don't know where the name came from, but the Acadians live in this area that's, like, Acadia, which is what we're talking about, like, above Maine. I'm not even looking at a map, I'm just guessing, but you know what I mean? No, yeah, like, when I think... I'm moving my hands. I mean, the Titans something just happened that left Newfoundland, and Newfoundland is, like, right above the East Coast. And is it, is it still country?

Is that what Labradors are from? Oh, my God. I don't know. Wow. Sorry, I just took us in a word direction. It's definitely part of Canada, but I don't know why Labradors would be from there. And I always forget how close to Canada the Titanic is. Are Labradors from New...

Although the name might suggest Labrador Retrieors came from Labrador Canada, the well-known dog read originated from nearby Newfoundland in the 1500s. How do you know that? I totally derailed this for a purpose. This is why I'm awesome at trivia. Oh my God, I am also awesome at trivia. So let's do that next time we're together. Yes, your pop culture trivia. I'm a useless fact for me.

Oh my God, I can't wait. That sounds awesome. So anyway, that's where we are. The Acadian population, I'll tell you who they were, but they lived up there. They had very tight-knit communities. They were French, so they were very influenced by French culture, and also they were very Catholic. So that's going to be important later that they were Catholic. They were specifically from the Vienne and Aquitaine regions of France.

That's where they came from when they came over to North America. I'm going to add in some dates and places. Initially, they came to Port Royal, like Port Royal, you know, I'm going to go back and forth, in 1604, which is, you know, up there in Nova Scotia, in general, where they live as Acadia. Right away, of course, they were like really, they were trying to convert the native people to Catholicism. Of course they were.

That's what people do. So that was happened immediately. They did try to convert the locals. The local tribe was the Micaw tribe. And they actually got along. relatively well. So there were religious and language barriers. The Mi'emal language is like very verb-based. So like you can say one word that means like a paragraph, you know, and it was hard to like translate the two together. And what they did when they first got there, which is super

fun, is they would just teach each other swear words and like everyone would just laugh. But then people were like, you have to be serious and like, you know, learn French and learn the micmae language. So they did that. Of course, also they brought along disease and STDs and all the things that you bring when you come to a new place. But they did keep a lot of their customs. So the Acadians kept a lot of the custom of like going to church and being very Catholic. There is a fair amount of intermarrying between the Acadians and the Micma. The first one, first like official marriage, a man named Charles Latour, married a

McMahon in 1626. That's like later, but they were like sleeping together before them and having babies, specifically because there weren't any French women for like the first 20 years. You know, they just sent men. So they have to. do something so they would you know sleep with some micma women it wasn't actually a big deal in their culture to have sex before marriage so they were they would do that but when they did want to get married if they didn't want to marry one of the one of the native women they had to stop having

sex with her for a whole year and live with her family in their like wigwam and then they can get married and despite that being crazy that did happen people to get married so who would agree to that they loved each other far as so So there was some of that. So they were generally, like, pretty happy. Like, I'm sure terrible things happened. They were pretty happy there. They started to, like, do, you know, they were just intermingling with, with the native people and then, like, doing their farming and their fur trading.

So French families started to arrive in the 1630s, which is a while later. It's like a whole generation later. French families started to arrive. The first European born in Acadia was a boy named Matu, Martin. He was born in 1636 at Port Raille. So he was the first, like, actually. like fully French baby to be born there, but there were mixed babies all over the place. While this is happening, there are so many wars happening and like other things happening too.

This is also when like Jamestown's happening. And a couple of people that we've talked about before are going to pop up on this story, kind of just like tangentially. But at one point, the man, a man named where to go, Samuel Argyll comes up to Acadia and starts to like kind of do stuff there. He's British. But he's the guy who kidnapped Pocahontas and. So kind of fun that he's involved in this somehow as well.

There's some wars in 1640. There's a little civil war for power between New Brunswick and Port Royal, which are really close to each other. That's the Canadians, like the Acadians are kind of fighting each other. But that gets worked out. But while this is happening, there's so many wars happening between the Indians and the French and the British and the French and the British and the Indians and the Spanish and everything happening in the American side. and there's a shit ton of wars happening in Europe too. So France doesn't always have the money or the time to support their colony up in Canada, you know? Makes sense.

Over the next 100 years or so, I'll name some wars that were going on. The British obviously are also involved in like the slave trade and colonization and they're just like doing a bunch of shit in North America for the first time. But first came the Puritans. So we talked about them coming over on the Mayflower or whatever. And I haven't mentioned this before is that the Puritans, you know, they had to leave England. because they were boring and everybody hated them. Yeah. Which is like where we get our culture from,

these boring-ass nerds who were not very nice. So the Puritans were not interested in assimilating with the natives like the Acadians were. So instead of being like, how can we work together, not that it was beautiful, whatever, how can we work together and like teach me how to find this land? They were like, no. We just want you to like be a Puritan and then like, that's it.

So that's why a lot of people starve to death. You know. James Town people starve to death. A lot of these like original. and oak yeah even in even in acadia people starved dead people left people you know like they did probably in roanoke they were starving to death so they left you know that's most likely outcome of what happened to those guys yeah yeah the puritans you know didn't want to mix they don't want to be friends they weren't interested in it the acadians were they were like well marry anyone we just need to

have more people they were like we understand that this is not going to work if we don't have a lot of people and we need to get people and we need to have more women like they just like weren't enough people So that's where they started to like intermarry with the McMaw and other, I think probably other tribes, tribes. There's a lot of fighting with the, with the Puritans and with the British kind of immediately. They want to come and like, you know, take their towns away, take their crops. The British, like more British people come are starting all these fights, all these like little wars. They kind of see them as backwards people, the Acadians, because they are all, they're living with the customs of France from like 50 years ago because they never. learn the new customs, the new culture.

So, like, wearing old-timey clothes and have wooden shoes. And, like, so they just kind of, like, make fun of them. And they, like, don't know really who these people are, if that makes sense. Another thing about the British is that they fucking hate the Catholics. They, like, hate them. And I think it goes back and forth. At this point, they're Protestant. They hate the Catholics as well.

And so they just, like, want to get rid of them. And they want to, like, take over the whole coast and have it all be Protestant. They literally are like, my Jesus is better than your Jesus. I know. It's so stupid. So stupid. It's like, oh, my God. God, you know, believing Jesus, just like, why, why, why kill people for this?

Like, go swim in a creek and have a beer. Like, why? For real. There was beer. That they were there, they were making beer. They were trying to, the French were a little disappointed that couldn't grow wine in that part of Canada. But, you know, there was booze. Yeah, calm down. Honestly, is a thing. So also, do you know what Nova Scotia means? New Scotland. Yes, I didn't know that. I didn't know that either. You just, you made me You forced me to think, which is not my natural state and my brain connected patterns. So, yeah, the Scottish are coming over as well. Everyone's coming over. Everyone wants a piece of this pie. There's a lot of plundering. Somehow in this story, also another person that we've heard from

before, Cotton Mather is involved. Remember Cotton Mather? Yeah, cool name. Yeah, he's a delight. Cotton and his dad's names increased. Remember? Those are my two names. Yeah, that's right. There's such good names, such good names. So Cotton Mathers is around as well. He's crazy. So he's there too, But let me tell you about some of these wars, because there are a lot of wars going on. There's King Phillips War from 1675 to 1676, so that's like a year. But King Philip, I don't know, I assume that was the European king. It's not. It's a native king, a Wampanong king named Philip.

And that was against some New England tribes and New England colonists and their Indian allies. They're just like fighting there. There's a war of Spanish succession, which happens in 1701 to 1715. So there's one in Europe that takes France's attention away. They're also like doing stuff in the colonies. And they're sending, they're trying to rule via boat, you know, which is impossible. So like they'll send a letter and be like, yeah, definitely burn down that town. And then they'll change your mind a week later, send that letter.

But by the time the person gets that letter, the town's been burned to the ground. Yeah. Like you can't, I don't know how he's by to control people that way. So there are four French and Indian people. Indian wars up in this area during this time. There's 1688 to 1697. There's King Williams War. Then there's Queen Anne's War in 1702 to 1713.

Then there's King George's War from 1744 to 1748. Then there's a French and Indian War, which is also called the Seven Years War from 1754 to 1763. So they're just like, this area is just crazy, you know. And at this time, America's been discovered. United States does not exist yet, right? correct yeah and so we're about to have the revolutionary war in you know 10 years after this after the last french and indian war and i keep saying the british but like they're also the

americans because they're turning into americans you know right right i'm not i can't be like oh the british it's the british i'm like it's the british because in the way that like we were the british before we're american yeah same with the puritans right like those were just British, different British people. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I wrote the American Revolutionary War coming soon to a coast near you. So in the meantime, the Acadians are just trying to live. They're trying to live in their area and not fight with everyone, but there's so much going on.

And the British keep saying, you have to pledge yourself to Britain. Like, you have to. You have to leave Catholicism, leave France. So you're going to be a Protestant and you're going to live in, and you're going to like, whatever, for the the king. And they're like, no, we just want to be French and live our lives. We just want to speak French and we don't want to do any of this. They try to make some treaties in French, but the British are like, we don't speak French. Everybody's mad at each other, which is a very American thing to do, to be like, I'm not learning your language. Fuck you.

That is very American. So, of course, they do that. They're like, okay, well, we'll sign this paper for you, whatever, like ceremonially, but we'll never take arms against the French. Like, we don't want to fight against the French. And the British are like, no, we might need you to fight. So a lot of back and forth. And it's worth also noting that, like, the Acadians, their life is pretty beautiful. Like, I'm sure there are, like, gender things that are bad. And I'm sure that they, you know, weren't nice to everyone. But, you know, they have big orchards. And they have, like, you know, the women cook, the men hunt. Like, they're living, like, a pretty, like, idyllic country life. That's where they came from in France. They came from a place of the,

like, rustic folk. And they like it. And they're having a good time. But it is not going to be forever their time because now it is 1755 I keep picturing like the opening scene in inglorious bastards where like that French family was just living this idyllic life and all of a sudden everything goes to hell on the handbasket exactly exactly yeah shit's about to go down at 1755 they lived there for like 150 years you know they have villages they have crops they were able to like create like dams and stuff to move the rivers around like so it didn't flood like all the things later of course the British know how to take care of them and they flooded everything flooded there were approximately 14,000

Acadians up in that area just trying to live their lives and the British are like we want to kick you out because you're still French we don't want you here anymore you have to leave specifically a governor named Charles Lawrence he came in and was like I want them out so he issued an order known as the expulsion of the Acadians or the great upheaval which is pretty down the nose for what you're going to do and he aimed to depart them from their homeland saying that they were a threat to British interests. So technically they're prisoners of war. He that kind of captures them and has them all moved.

He doesn't want them together anymore because together they can like defend themselves. Yeah. So separate them. But they send them to the American colonies. They just disperse them kind of all over. Of the 14,000 people, 11,000 were deported in a terrible way. The first expulsion happened on August 10th, 1755 in the Bay of Fundy, where they ordered people to just kind of like be like corraled onto boats and they didn't say this but like

they're probably slave ships because the the conditions on the boats were like you couldn't move you know you're just like terrible ton of people died on the boats they died of sicknesses they died of starvation two of the boats never even made it anywhere they just had like hundreds of people on the boat and no no one knows what happened wouldn't any cargo ship be a slave ship though yeah that's true it's not a passenger ship was used as a slave ship exactly it's not the Titanic

with its nice stuff I don't think any trip was very nice yeah yeah it was all hell yeah but it was particularly awful when they November 1755 a man named George Scott which may be sad because remind me George C Scott

and I don't want him to think of him as a batty attacked 20 houses in one of the Acadian towns killing 200 of their livestock just to deprive them of supplies to starve them out if they weren't in there. What they would do is they would be like, we're having a meeting with, we need all the men in town ages 10 and up to come and meet with us. And they're like, that's weird. You need a 10-year-olds to come to a meeting, you know, but then they would go and then

they would lock the door and they'd be like, now you're captured and take them away. And so because of this, so many families were separated. So the men would just be taken away in the middle of the night and the women wouldn't even know where they went or like what to do. so a lot of them were just starving and died like in their homes and then a lot of their homes were burned down and all their livestock was killed and like they just wanted them out of their so bad so they put boats and they are going down the coast people are just disappearing families are being pulled apart they don't give people a heads up and they just are there so all of a sudden there's just like 200 Acadians in Boston you know yeah and they're like what are we supposed to do with them so they rely on charity they rely on like the churches but they just are they the churches don't really want them because they're Catholic, but they're like, we have to help these people. So people are like sleeping outside in Boston in the snow because they have no money. They have nowhere to go. They won't, people won't give them jobs. And they took and they don't have any

stuff. Just had to like leave into the dump them there. You know, one thing they would do, which is terrible is they would take the children away to be servants in other people's houses because then the children at least had like a place to stay. But they were like basically steal them. So they're prisoners of war, but they won't swear allegiance to the bridge. British king. They're like, that doesn't make any sense. You just did this to us. Like, why would we want to become like one of your subjects? Some of them get sent back to England, to England, to France, back to Europe. They come back and they go back and forth. But like, they're all separated from their families. They don't know where anybody is. Some of them go back to Canada to the place to Acadia where they're from. But their lands have been stolen. So they have to work the lands that used to be their family lands for like hundreds of years. Right. To like have a job because they like know how to do it. So it's super sad. And all they keep saying, all we want is to, like, be left alone and be with our families again, you know? They're like, you can keep our stuff. You already took our stuff.

You know, we just want our families back. We want to be able to go and, like, live our own lives somewhere. And eventually, the British are like, okay, this is exhausting. Like, we don't know what to do with you. Like, no one wants you around, like, just because of, like, prejudice. And it's like, they're mixed. Some of them are mixed. Some of them, most, all of them are French.

All of them are Catholic. So in 1764, so nine years after it started, the British government passed a lot of law to permit them to return to British territories in small groups. So they can't all be together, but they can at least try to find their families and deal with their families and be in small groups. Some of them went back to Canada. Today, there are still Acadians that live in eastern New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Northern Maine, like where they were in the beginning, if they get there, some of them went to other parts of the U.S. And a big chunk of them ended up in Spanish, Louisiana. And eventually, the French word Acadian became the word

Cadian, which later turned into the word Cajun. That's where the Cajun people are from. Wait, so is that why Louisiana has such a French influence? Yep. Interesting. Okay, I didn't know that. Yeah. Right now in our time, there's less and less people in Louisiana who speak French, but there are people in the government trying to get like French back in schools and things like that because it's part of their ancestry. A lot of them come, you know, from the Acadian French people. In 1847, the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote an epic poem called Evangeline about a woman who was taken from Acadia and separated from her family from her lover and eventually finds him and then they both die and it's super sad. An epic poem is really hard for me to read because I just like literally can't. I do have this poem randomly because I have this book I'm holding up for you called Longfellow's illustrated poems that I bought the library love the library book sale um I mean look at this it's like super old like these I'm going to show you but I'll put a thing in it but it's like old the right is really small I'm like I can't read this poem but it's illustrated but I bought it because in the

inside of it it it's inscribed well it has this cool 1920 stickers on it and it is says to Florence Dufelmeier from Mrs. Renee Spencer, September 24th, 1922. So 100 years ago, this was given to a little girl named Florence, which is super cool. Yeah, you had by the book. I had a book. So the Evangeline is in here. And it really brought the story of what happened to the Acadians, to more people, because apparently people have the patience to read epic poem in 1847. We used to be smarter. We used to read. I literally do not. But I am going to read you some of it.

Yeah, go for it. We're here. This is the opening of Sanzza, which is very popular, apparently. I don't even know if stanza is the right word, but it's a couple of paragraphs. Ready? Yep. This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlocks, bearded with moss and in garment's grain, indistinct in twilight, stand like druids of eld with voices sad and

prophetic. Stand the Harper's hoar with beards that rest on their bosoms, loud from its rocky caverns, the deep voice neighboring ocean speaks in an accents disconsolate answers the whale of the forest this is a forest primeval but where are the hearts that beneath it leaped like a row when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman where is a that thatch-roofed village the home of the acadian farmers men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands darkened by shadow of earth but reflecting an image of heaven waste are those peasant farms and the farmers forever departed scattered like dust and leaves when the mighty blasts of October sees them and whirl them aloft and sprinkle them far over the ocean. Not but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand Prix. Ye who believe in affection that hopes and endures and is patient, ye who believe in the beauty and strength of women's devotion, list to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest, list to the tale of of love in Acadia, home of the happy. So it's a sad tale of a beautiful place that was

ruined and all the people's taken away. I also texted last night just as like one more fun thing, Forrest, who is my brother Kincaid's boyfriend, and he's from Louisiana. So I texted him like really late at night, and I was like, hey, do you, I'm going to talk about the Acadians tomorrow, anything I should mention. And he said, are you going to talk about Evangeline? I was like, yes. And he said, he's from Evangeline parish in Louisiana. They named their turtle Evangeline, which is funny. Oh, wow. And he said, it's a fundamental story for the Cajians. And, and he said, it's a fundamental story for occasions and his family has been writing letters of Canadian relatives since the 1600s so they've still been like keeping in touch with people in Canada who they all came from the same

original group of Acadians from France that's really interesting you know what's funny is whenever you first started the story I immediately recollected like probably a 10-year-old thought which was when we were our last company and we started and we started expanding into the canadian market the the people in quebec and french-speaking canada were very much up in arms about why even though they speak english as well why wouldn't translate everything on our back end to not just french but quibreco francophone and i remember having these discussions with somebody there and they were in sense that anybody would not consider their language so sufficiently important as equal to english and how incredibly

enraging it was to talk to somebody with that mentality that would be like me saying like look i know that there's seven people in iran who can buy this product but if you don't translate it into into farsi then i can't be a part of this at all it was just and it also reminded me of the rock terrio story which was you know rock terrier obviously being uh french canadian and how because of how prejudice, much prejudice existed towards French Canadians, anybody that was kind of like in the people services sector were like so hands off. We're like, no, we just don't understand his rustic ways. Never mind that he's beating women of death with like broom handles.

Right. It's like, oh, that's just the way it is. He's just a rustic old Frenchman. It was like, which also is its own prejudice to think that like that's what a normal person would do. It is. I guess I don't, I, I will probably talk about Canada again, you know, in the future, but I definitely don't 100% understand how like they're British and French. I think it's

this because like the British ended up taking over, but like there's still, they were British subjects until like 1980s, which I learned in Super Drupers too. So I don't know. Is that interesting? That was my very first thought was just like, what's the right way to say it? It was a unique variation of white privilege that has been absent. in my life, it only been experienced dealing with French Canadians. Remember, my Uncle Dale was the best. The last time I saw him before he passed away, he drove me to the airport in Chicago, and he told me that he got in trouble at work because he kept calling the Canadian team,

the fucking Canadians. And they're like, Dale, you have to stop saying that. Oh, my God. We're going to get in trouble. It's going to be a getting cold podcast. We love you. No, we love it. We love Canada, Arcadian friends, lots of fun stories up there.

So, yeah, it was crazy. I didn't know that. And I was excited when I first showed the story that they became occasions. I think that's super interesting, you know, that that culture is like from there. Yeah, that's really cool. I never, never even dug into that. Which, I mean, there's so many things like that way you never dig into it. Like, why do people are this way in this part of the country?

Like, I don't know. Yeah. And I never considered that for Louisiana. But that was, that was cool. That was really cool. You should do this. You should go to, well, go to Canada. Canada's pretty on its own. But if you don't want to go to Canada, Epcot has a, has a beer and

wine festival. And there, have you been to Epcot before? I have, but I would like eight, but yes. So Epcot, well, you would, you would never, you would not have appreciated it, but Epcot has a beer and wine festival. It's expensive, right? It's like probably 200 bucks a person, because you basically eat through every single country in Epcot. And their Canadian section was probably the coolest and most fun. So, but Canada itself was pretty, but Disney also is a pretty good Epcot. I mean, I would 100% rather go to Canada than Florida. So, you know how I feel. And I saw this TikTok's other day of like these dudes in Venice, Italy. And one guy was like, they literally have this at Epcot. And his friends were like, this is the real one. And he's like,

but they have this at Epcot. Have you seen the Eiffel Tower in Vegas? It's just, it has way better lights in the actual Eiffel Tower. Oh, God. Oh, my God. I'm so uncultured. Okay. So, Taylor, thanks for sharing. You want to share some emails or anything?

I do. I have one thing to say to tell you that I forgot to mention last week is we talked a couple weeks ago about the Ford Edsel and my grandpa had one. So I wanted to tell you a little bit about it. So my grandpa Finch, my mom's dad is like a very, I should show you his photos in time. I mean, he's like, he's the 50s guy, you know, he had like the tortoise shell glasses. He had the little popadour thing. He wore a suit.

He wears a door-to-door salesman. Like, he is the whole thing. He was in the Navy during World War II. His dad killed himself because he lost all of his money in the, in the depression, like in the stock market crash. I mean, I don't know if he really died by suicide, but he got really sick. And like, I don't know, maybe he did or didn't, but whatever. So it's a very American story. That side of my family, like they come, they got her really, really early.

there's like a bar that my aunt and uncle actually just went to in like virginia that like they used to like own and we're like one of the and like one of our one of the finches died at gettysburg on the wrong side of gettysburg which is a bummer but you know so it's a very american story so he's exactly the guy that ford was targeting for the edsel you know like an up-accoming family guy and it worked so and he loved cars he could like you know fix his own car and like you know did out do it all of that so i asked my aunt kathy to about it because she was old to oldest, because she'd remember the most. And she said that Grandpa Finch had two Edsels. The first one was a yucky green 1959 sedan that he only kept for a few months. He promptly traded it for a 1959 cream-colored station wagon. And all six of them in their family, four kids, two adults, took a road trip to Montana to see family. They had a great time there. There was an earthquake at Yellowstone Park during that time, which was cool. And I was like, this time they were there in their Edsel, their very 50s family. She also remembers that it had no air conditioning and no power steering. And so my aunt Kathy took and passed her driver's test parallel parking

and Edsel with no power steering one of the longest cars that existed. So pretty fun. That's intense. But yeah, but Grandpa loved it because it was such a novelty, especially after production was stopped. Did he keep it for a while? Do we know? I think so. I think it for a while. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's probably worth so much money right now. if it was actually kept in like good condition yeah because there's not that many not that many sweet well taylor i'm going to go ahead and cut this off here and like us on apple podcasts follow us at dune to feel pod email us at dune to fill pot at gmail.com and we're at dune to fell pod at all social tell your friends tell your friends i'm going to cut this off okay

Thank you.