Cheticamp. The Margaree is the dividing-line between the Scotch and the Acadian elements which inhabit this coast. Not twenty Scotch families live north of the boundary. The French land-holders spread their salmon nets and set their traps for lobster within sight of their own door-yards.
At Friar's Head there is a French church and a glebe house where dwell the Abbé Broussard and his sister, shepherd and shepherdess of a scattered flock. If the traveller has perhaps bought wild berries of a gamin in the road and a loaf of bread made by the postmaster's wife, here at the priest's, farm he will find milk to drink with them. Doubtless a glass of port will be offered and the horses watered by Achille, the nephew, before the stranger is permitted to continue on the road to Cheticamp.
Grand Étang is the only village of importance between the Margaree mouth and Eastern Harbour, in the district of Cheticamp. Here a fork of Northeast Margaree emerges through a funnel gullied in the mountains. In windy seasons the gales that blow up and down stream make the crossing of the bridge that spans it so hazardous that no one but the postman makes the attempt, and he only after ballasting his cart well with rock.
Cheticamp, 18 miles from Margaree Harbour, has the largest population of any Acadian community in Nova Scotia. In 1783, fourteen families took up land here and engaged in the fisheries, a station having been established by the Jersey firm of
