Canada: NOVA SCOTIA: Acadian Utopia

As they do every autumn, the hardy fishermen of little West Pubnico last week climbed into their boats and chugged away to the Bay of Fundy to reap a harvest of scallops. Behind them, on a mile-wide neck of land in the quiet Acadian country of Nova Scotia, they left one of the most remarkable villages in North America.

West Pubnico has 1,426 citizens, and 1,422 of them are related by birth or marriage. West Pubnico has no local taxes, no courts, no jail. Not in 15 years has anyone been arrested. Said Pubniconian Mrs. Henry Leblanc: “The Mounties from Yarmouth used to come around, but now we hardly ever see them. They just can’t find any business down here.” West Pubnico has no mayor nor town council, and there are no local laws.

West Pubnico was founded in 1651 by a blue-blooded Frenchman named Sieur Philippe d’Entremont. Because he was the Baron de Pombcoup, his settlement was known first as Pombcoup, then (by the Indians) as Pobomcook, finally (by latter-day Canadians) as Pubnico. Today 675 Pubniconians are d’Entremonts. The others are Leblancs, d’Eons, Sureties and Amiraults, who have married into the family. The only four “outsiders” in the village: Fish Processor Charles Munro, who moved in from nearby Shelburne five years ago, his wife and two children.

Aside from an occasional bad fishing season or a poor crop year, the village’s troubles are the complications of close kinship. Parents, giving wedding receptions or welcome-home parties for returning servicemen (three returned last week), are eternally flustered about which relatives to invite, which to ignore.

Variation on a Theme. To avoid confusion in identity, many a newborn Pubniconian gets a name of his own with his father’s first name tacked on. Example: Allan, son of Brad d’Entremont, is called Allan-a-Brad. Even so, confusions are numerous. Postmistress Annie d’Entremont, with a letter to be delivered to William A. d’Entremont, can usually tell which of four such Williams should get it, but only by examining the handwriting on it, or noting the identity of the sender.

West Pubnico has prospered during the war. In season the hardy Pubniconian men go after lobster, herring, mackerel and tuna. Winters they repair their nets, tend their cows and chickens, live off their home-grown vegetables and the fish they salted away, and generally take life easy in their tidy, white-frame homes which are clustered about Father Leblanc’s St. Peter’s Church.

For reasons that no big-city dweller would have trouble understanding, folks live a long time in quiet, peaceful West Pubnico; Dr. Philippe d’Entremont and Dr. Thomas Leblanc (who married a d’Entremont) are never too busy. Pubniconians who die before they are 80 are accounted victims of accident. Some manage to attain 100.

Above all, West Pubniconians are proud of their community. Last week they were organizing a d’Entremont museum.