Tintamarre: A Celebration Worth Experiencing in New Brunswick, Canada

The Feast of the Assumption on the Roman Catholic calendar, Aug. 15, is also the Acadian national holiday, and Caraquet, New Brunswick, is the place to join in the celebration.

The Acadians are the survivors of the war between the French and the English over the lands that are now Canada’s Atlantic provinces. While most French settlers in Nova Scotia were deported to Louisiana (where they became the “Cajuns”), others remained in maritime Canada and kept low profiles until the conflict settled.

Caraquet and other towns in northwest New Brunswick still have enthusiastic Acadian populations. Traveling here in any season, you’ll see the Acadian flag — red, white and blue bands with a gold star in the center — flying from homes and shops.

That enthusiasm literally fills the air Aug. 15, when, at 6 p.m., pandemonium breaks loose in Caraquet. More than 20,000 people crowd the streets, parks and front yards along Route 11in the center of the small beach and fishing town.

As the church bell rings, Caraquet’s main street suddenly becomes a moving sea of people who spend the next hour marching up and down its one-mile length, making noise on every conceivable sort of contraption.

This is Tintamarre, a boisterous, funny, spontaneous and noisy pandemonium. Most of the parading noise-makers are in costumes, which range from homemade clown suits and various combinations of tricolor clothing to elaborate multi-person dragons.

It’s a family occasion. Little kids with painted faces are pulled in wagons, big kids walk singly or in groups, elderly couples amble along — all of them making noise. The “musical” instruments are everything from out-of-tune trumpets to tin pot lids used as cymbals.

Cow bells, whistles, wash tubs, bicycle horns, drums, strings of sleigh bells, pie tins with wooden spoons — you name it. If it makes noise and can be rolled, dragged or carried, it’s there at full volume.

Everyone is welcome to join the parade, and your kids will surely want to be part of it. If you don’t travel with noisemakers (other than your kids), stop at a dollar store and challenge your kids to use their imagination in finding things to bang together.

When the pandemonium ends at 7 p.m., it’s time for picnics in the park or pick up dinner from food vendors and settle in to enjoy the concert, which usually features a well-known maritime band or Acadian group.

To know more about the early Acadians, before Tintamarre begins, take the family to Caraquet’s Acadian Village. At this living history museum, Aug. 15 is filled with special family events; demonstrations; and non-stop performances by Acadian fiddlers, dancers and singers to put everyone in the mood for the evening’s revelry.