Nova Scotia Celebrates Grand Pré as newest UNESCO World Heritage Site

The Landscape of Grand Pré is an outstanding example and enduring model of the human capacity to overcome extraordinary natural challenges and cultural ordeals. Along the shores of the Minas Basin, on the eastern edge of Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley, the historic community of Grand Pré has existed for more than 300 years. It is a living agricultural landscape, claimed from the sea in the 17th century and still in use today applying the same technology and the same community-based management. It is also a powerful symbolic landscape for the Acadians who lived in harmony with the native Mi’Kmaq people, were dispersed by the Grand Derangement, and symbolically re-appropriated it in a spirit of peace and cultural sharing with the English-speaking community. Grand-Pré National Historic Site of Canada commemorates Grand-Pré area as a centre of Acadian settlement from 1682 to 1755 and the Deportation of the Acadians, which began in 1755 and continued until 1762.

Grand Pré becomes the third World Heritage Site in Nova Scotia.  Lunenburg was added to the list in 1995 and the Joggins fossil cliffs in 2008. In addition, UNESCO approved two biosphere reserves for Nova Scotia in the past decade.  Southwest Nova Biosphere Reserve was recognized in 2001 and Bras d’Or Lakes Biosphere Reserve in 2011. www.landscapeofgrandpre.ca; www.grand-pre.com