Catherine Poirier's Going Home Song

Lisa Arsenault is an elementary-school teacher in Ajax, Ontario.

Catherine Poirier, an Acadian personality, is known for the songs she
composes and sings and for the hooked rugs she crafts. Eber has
collected Poirier’s rugs for 20 years, and a strong friendship has
developed between the two women. Eber allows Poirier to describe in her
own words growing up on Cape Breton. Village scenes from Poirier’s
girlhood are often depicted in her hooked rugs, and her anecdotes are
complemented by color photographs of rungs that illustrate her themes.
Occasionally, a stanza from “The Going Home Song”—which
commemorates the joyful return of an Acadian native to his village after
a trip to the United States—appears amid her reminiscences, and an
appropriate rug is featured.

This little memoir is a valuable mine of Acadian social history. In the
18th century, Poirier’s ancestors were ordered deported by the British
but managed to relocate down the coast, where they founded a new Acadian
village. Many traditions and stories were passed down in Poirier’s
family. Her own personal experiences, including a period “away” in
the United States, epitomize the experiences of her people in the 1920s
and 1930s. Poirier brings this farming and fishing community to vivid
life, and the photographs of her hooked rugs reveal exquisite
craftsmanship.