LARRY’S RIVER — Less than one year after launching in a common room provided by the community centre in Larry’s River, Guysborough County’s first French-language school will soon have a modern, new building.
“I can’t get over how beautiful it is,” says École Belle-Baie Principal Nicole Avery-Bell about the modularly constructed edifice that’s now rising next door to the public space where 17 kids from kindergarten to Grade 10 learned their ABCs last year, which could be open in a few weeks.
“It has five big classrooms, a beautiful central hallway with vaulted ceilings, a staff room, an office, a reception area [and] washrooms. I mean, it’s tremendous. I was just shocked.”
She’s not the only one in this tightly knit Acadian enclave, which also includes the nearby communities of Tor Bay, Charlos Cove and Port Felix, feeling that way.
“It’s a dream that we never anticipated would become a reality,” says Jude Avery, a well-known educator, author and president of La Société Acadienne de Torbé. “We’ve been working very hard at preserving our culture over a number of years.”
That, says Stephanie Comeau, director of communications at Conseil scolaire acadien provincial (CSAP), is one of the project’s key objectives. “It really was a community effort where a group of parents in the area said that they wanted to have a school [building]. Through their efforts and with the [advocacy] of the CSAP,” the provincial government agreed to pay and arrange for its construction.
Provincial officials were not able to provide the cost of the project before press time, but Comeau said the modular model – which differs from the old portable system, in that the classrooms can be connected and incorporate other integrated features, like washrooms – is fairly common across the province.
“What’s important is that this was the last Acadian region in Nova Scotia to not have a school at proximity,” she says. “The closest one to them was an hour-and-a-half by bus one way and an hour-and-a-half by bus the other.”
Indeed, Avery says, that’s a problem when a physical school building is often a crucial setting for conveying a language and keeping a community’s culture alive.
“To preserve and promote culture without the language [being taught] is a difficult road, and, so, this will give us another tool in the toolbox to do just that.”
All of which may be a testament to the self-determination of a community that’s accustomed to keeping many balls in the air to preserve and champion its identity in this region of the province.
After years of organizing, École Belle-Baie opened with 16 students last September with temporary digs. In March, after canvassing the public and shortlisting the submissions, it selected its official name to capture the history and hopes of the whole community.
Said Bell-Avery at the time: “It reflects the villages here that surround the bay.”
Now, she says, it still does, but with a new sense of permanence.
“A school is obviously a place to pass on knowledge, but this will be more than just that. It will become the hub of this community, the hub of this Acadian revival, a symbol of something worthy that we’ve been working towards.”
It will also become ‘home’ to a growing student population, which now numbers 22. “Oh yes we’re growing,” Avery-Bell says. “I think with a permanent structure, there will be many more parents interested, thinking, ‘Hey this is not a passing fancy.’’’
According to CSAP, the school is expected to open sometime this year, but Avery-Bell thinks it could be sooner than later. “The construction company started building the modules offsite last winter; those were delivered here in July. The work has been ongoing ever since. Everything will be ready, hopefully, within the month of September.”
Until then, she notes, the kids will continue their studies in the community centre.
“We never lost the culture and identity, but over the generations the language was very much lost. Now, with this building, we’re taking it back.”
