Kitchen Party at Le Pays de la Sagouine, New Brunswick

For Anglophones visiting the Le Pays de la Sagouine on the Acadian coast, NB, there is a “Kitchen Party” twice a day. It’s quite fun and you can hear the history of the Acadian people in English.

An Acadian Kitchen Party at Le Pays de la Sagouine, New Brunswick (Canada).

I caught the afternoon kitchen party with “Marie-Rose” and “Alexina.” Alexina is a 17-year old fiddler who plays delightfully. Actually, she started as a step dancer and her brother as a fiddler, but they ended up switching.

Anyways, the two ladies also taught a group of seven of us how to tap our feet in time to the fiddle- toe, toe, heel- and then gave us wooden spoons (which the Acadians use as an instrument) to clap our leg and hand to keep tune. I think we did pretty good, although the toe tapping is really exhausting and it’s impossible to keep up with the fiddler.

Later in the day, I noticed a fiddler performing on stage and he kept up the toe, toe, heel throughout all of his songs. I can now appreciate how difficult this is and can’t believe he didn’t lose a beat, all the while playing the fiddle to perfection.

The video below is a snapshot of Alexina playing the fiddle for us at the Kitchen Party while Marie-Rose plays the spoons.

What I Liked:

• Although the sketches performed at Le Pays de la Sagouine are in French, this is a great way to get the history in English (all interpreters are bilingual, but they only perform in French).
• I loved trying to learn how to “dance” to the fiddle, which is so much harder than it looks. To play the fiddle at the same time? Oh boy…
• The interpreters are great to chat with and they’re happy to answer questions. Alexina, in particular, was so sweet!

Tags: Acadian people, acadian spoons, canada, fiddler, in english, Kitchen Party, Le Pays de la Sagouine, nb, New Brunswick, step dancer