Porcupines and Ployes in the Republic of Madawaska

The paternal side of my family hails from the historical Republic of Madawaska. They are—or were—Brayons with a culinary legacy of ployes. If you have no idea what any of those are, I’m about to share more about Maine Acadian heritage on the trail of my fictional character Rose Michaud.

While St. Martin Parish, Louisiana, has the highest French population (Cajuns and Creoles) in the U.S., the small city of Madawaska, Maine, boasts the highest percentage or concentration of French-speaking people—a whooping 75%. The Francophones of this area are known as Brayons or Madawaskayans. They inhabit the Upper St. John River Valley of northern Maine and Madawaska County, New Brunswick.

Brayon(ne) used to be written as Breillon. Valley French is also known as the Brayon accent. I’ve read several hypotheses of the origin of this obscure word, but the one I find most intriguing—and perhaps most likely—is the noun braie, meaning “old clothes” in certain dialects of western France.

Why?

The Culture of Farming and Forestry

Many Brayons descend from Nova Scotia/New Brunswick Acadians who escaped the British deportations in the mid-1700s. However, many others (like my own ancestors) had gradually migrated east from the St. Lawrence River area and claimed strong roots in Quebec. Most came desperately poor—in their “old clothes,” you might say.

“La simplicité est la sophistication suprême. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” –Leonardo da Vinci

However, they were a proud, resourceful people. The Acadians and the Quebecois melded together in the St. John Valley to form a distinctive culture that was unlike either ancestral heritage. Their history became linked to riverside farms and the deep northern forests of the Madawaska area.

Last summer my husband and I spent a weekend with friends in Madawaska. While driving home on a rainy June morning, we stopped to visit the Acadian Village historical museum in Van Buren, Maine. (The site would be better named Brayon, rather than Acadian.) Unfortunately, it was too early in the season to get a proper tour. But from the rustic fence outside, we could observe the collection of relocated and restored farmhouses and outbuildings of the original pioneers. They bore names of people we know (probably relatives)!

During an earlier trip, we’d walked through similar humble homes across the St. John River in St-Basil and Drummond (New Brunswick). Historically, the formal borders between New Brunswick and Quebec, and even Maine, mattered little to the area people. They identified themselves as Brayons more than French, English, Canadians, or Americans. A friend told me that as a Madawaska high school girl, she used to ice skate on the river to meet guys from Edmundston. The boundaries blurred then, especially in the winter.

This goes back more than two hundred years.

The Aroostook War

If you studied Maine History in eighth grade (as I did), you’ll have heard of this obscure conflict.

Following the American Revolution and the Treaty of Paris in 1783, a border dispute brewed in this whole region. The limits between the U.S.A. and the British North American colonies remained imprecisely defined. In the early 19^th century, only a scattered handful of people lived in Aroostook County (northern Maine) outside of Madawaska settlement.

In 1817, an American, John Baker, arrived in this region of Maine/New Brunswick/Quebec overlap and settled in what is now Baker-Brook, NB. He fervently supported the Maine legislature’s claims to this disputed northern area. So, beginning in 1821 and for the next 20 years, he repeatedly provoked British authorities and agitated for the Madawaska Territory’s inclusion in the State of Maine.

“Le paysage est un état d’âme. The landscape is a state of mind.” –Henri-Frédéric Amiel

On July 4, 1827, Baker held an Independence Day celebration at his home and invited area settlers. At his event, Baker proclaimed the entire Madawaska Territory (the New Brunswick “Panhandle” and adjacent areas of Quebec and Aroostook County, Maine) to be independent of all foreign jurisdiction.

Despite their Canadian background, many French families viewed their Valley Brayon culture as unique and joined the American settlers. Disgusted with both British and American interference on their historical lands, they declared themselves allied with neither and autonomous.

Thus the République du Madawaska was founded and led into the undeclared Aroostook War of 1838–39.

The Porcupine Republic

The word “Madawaska” comes from the Mi’kmaq words madawas (“place of”) and kak (“porcupine”). Thus, Madawaska is “the country of the porcupine.” The Bicentennial version of the Madawaska flag shows a porcupine encircled by gold stars with a single gold fleur-de-lys. (Since most Brayon ancestors departed from France before the French Revolution, they usually prefer the fleur-de-lys to the modern French tricolor.)

Whatever design it may have borne, John Baker raised a flag sewn by his wife Sophronia (aka Sophie) in honor of the new republic. An evening ball followed the Fourth of July picnic. There Baker announced another gathering for August 10 to ratify a transitional government, called the Madawaska Compact. In time, Baker planned to apply to the State of Maine for subsequent annexation.

Naturally, the British establishment in New Brunswick considered these moves as rebellion and the putative Republic of Madawaska as counterfeit. A local magistrate soon arrived to confiscate the documents and arrest Baker for sedition. He languished in a Fredericton jail for the next year-plus.

“À vaillant coeur rien d’impossible. For a valiant heart nothing is impossible.”–Jacques Coeur

However, upon release, he continued to lead a group of Brayon neighbors in defying New Brunswick authorities for years. In 1831, Baker again attempted to create a township of Madawaska but had to flee into the wilderness to avoid apprehension. Nine years later, he was arrested yet again. 

The Webster-Ashburton Treaty

Eventually, the Baker situation blew into an international incident of the time. U.S. President John Quincy Adams asked Secretary of State Henry Clay to investigate the matter. The Republic of Madawaska was never formally recognized but remained in dispute until 1842.

The events emphasized, however, the need to settle this section of the border. Ultimately, the Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842) split the lands encompassed by the Republic of Madawaska into American and Canadian parts, divided by the Upper St. John River. The boundary debate was finally settled.

But to this day, the Brayon culture on either side of the river lives on as one. In fact, a border crossing at Edmundston-Madawaska barely existed for nearly one hundred years. My dad once told me how his family transported (i.e. smuggled 😊) buckwheat flour and other rationed foodstuffs across the river border during the Second World War.

Ployes for Breakfast

Ahem, about the buckwheat running… Ployes were a type of flatbread, griddle cake, or crepe made of buckwheat flour. A Brayon staple, they enjoyed great popularity in the erstwhile Republic of Madawaska. Like Southern grits or Chilote potatoes, the ploye filled the local population with a simple carbohydrate food that was cheap and easy to make. Which probably explains why my Brayon-French grandmother might serve us pancakes for breakfast, lunch, or supper.

“Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es. Tell me what you eat, and I’ll tell you what you are.” –Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Over time, ployes became a classic Brayon dish. Maine ployes might have a yellow or reddish hue because of the buckwheat variety used. Recipes vary from family to family, handed down through the generations.

True ploye batter is very thin and cooked only on one side. Then it is buttered, topped with maple syrup, molasses, or cretons (a minced pork paté), and rolled up or folded to eat. Ployes might traditionally accompany baked beans, hot dogs, or a chicken stew with dumplings called fricot.

If you’d like to sample a ploye, you can find them at summer events such as the Ployes Festival and the Foire Brayonne. But these days, you can also buy ploye mix in a paper package at the supermarkets in northern Maine.

Brayon Heritage

Who knows whether the whole idea of the Republic of Madawaska was meant as a political joke or not? But the irony is, many Brayons take it seriously today, at least certainly as a cultural entity. The porcupine flag flies alongside the Acadian, New Brunswick, and Canadian flags in downtown Edmundston, NB.

“Where we love is home—home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.” –Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

It seems unlikely that Valley Francophone families had any genuine intention of becoming Americans at the time of the Aroostook War, but they possessed little desire to integrate into British Canada either. In the end, some Brayons reside in Canada, some live in the States, some identify with both—or neither. They are of the République du Madawaska, a world unto themselves.

You can take the girl away from French country, but you can’t take the French from the girl. N’est-ce pas, Grammie Alice?