330 and Counting

What do you do if you’re expecting company? You put out the welcome mat—preferably a hand-hooked one. But if you’re an outside-the-box thinker like Rémi Lévesque, you put out the welcome hooked cushion. And not just one—330 of them!

Rémi lives in Grande Barachois, a village in southeast New Brunswick on the Northumberland Strait, where upon retiring from a teaching career in 2012, he learned the art of rug hooking and was invited to join Les Hookeuses du Bor’de’lo, a collective of professional, contemporary fibre artists. Around the same time, he joined the Preservation Committee of l’Église Historique de Barachois, which manages the 1826 Gothic-style church, which, after its closure in 1974, was repurposed as an art gallery, museum, and music venue.

In 2016, his two passions, rug hooking and promoting arts and culture, came together when he began considering what role the historic church could play in the next World Acadian Congress, scheduled for August 2019. This two-week event, held every five years in various areas of the Maritime Provinces, has the potential to bring together up to 100,000 people of Acadian descent from around the world.