Jackie Vautour: Nov. 5, 1976, 'will never be forgotten'

Forty years have now passed, but Jackie Vautour says Nov. 5, 1976, is a day he will never forget.

That's the day RCMP officers removed his family from their New Brunswick home to make room for a national park.

Vautour'shome was one of many bulldozed to the ground as 10 Acadian villages affecting more than 1,000 people were expropriated to build what is nowKouchibouguacNational Park.

"It will never be forgotten," Vautour, 88, told CBC on Saturday. "This is the remembrance day."

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Vautour said he arrived home from work that November day and found the Kent County sheriff and his men standing in the yard and in his house with an eviction notice.

What I want now is for it to be remembered. That it should never happen to anyone else what happened to us. Jackie Vautour

"What does one do when things like that happen? We had to try to resist and stay at home but they put us under arrest and took us to jail," he said.

Still defiant, Vautour returned to the park two years after the bulldozing and has fought for his right to live off the land ever since. He still lives in a ramshackle home in the middle of the park.

He has challenged the expropriation in court but it was ruled lawful.

Laws changed in 2000

However, the Canadian National Parks Act, given royal assent in 2000, states that Parks Canada can no longer acquire land through expropriation.

"What I want now is for it to be remembered," Vautour said. "That it should never happen to anyone else what happened to us."

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