Franco-American Pathways

In this episode, Anna sits down with Denis Ledoux. A well-established writer, Ledoux is the author of French Boy: A 1950s Franco-American Childhood and the editor of Lives in Translation: An Anthology of Contemporary Franco-American Writings . His most recent work, Here to Stay: Lives in 17th-Century Canada , appeared in the fall of 2025. Denis is the founder of the Memoir Network, which guides ev...

In this episode, Pathways takes you along on a visit to the Margaret Chase Smith Library in Skowhegan, Maine. Curator of Collections Nicole Potter shows Anna and Madeline artifacts of Senator Smith's life, work and family, and discusses her Franco-American heritage. Interviewee: Nicole Potter Interviewers: Anna Faherty & Madeline Soucie Music: Robert Sylvain Narration: Patrick Lacroix Edit...

Today we bring you the second part of our exploration of Franco Madison! Our apologies for the delayed release, this tape needed a lot of editing due to background noise. We begin this episode with a tour of the Madison Historical Society with  Shirley Vigneault, discuss Vigneault and Acadian genealogy, thanks to the research of Darcy Vigneault Beery (Shirley’s daughter) and take a stroll in downt...

Join us as we explore Madison, Maine in our “Mapping Franco Madison” episodes, recorded with Shirley Vigneault from the Madison Historical Society, and Shirley’s relative, Joey Leblanc. Today, we are presenting you with the first part of our adventure: a sit down interview with Shirley Vigneault and her sisters: June Vigneault Orcutt, Sandra “Sandy” Vigneault Welton, Beverly “Bev” Vigneault Megill...

In this episode we’ll explore Franco-American theatre, particularly community theatre here in Lewiston.  We’ll hear from three Francos in community theatre today: John Blanchette, Paul Caron, and Roger Philippon.  In The Archivist’s Corner Anna will share theatre programs, a desk from a local Franco-American author,  and a local French-language translation of  Gilbert & Sullivan’s comic opera...

In season three of our show, we are finally able to release our anticipated “Mapping Franco Brunswick” episodes, recorded with David Vermette, author of A Distinct Alien Race , and Larissa Vigue-Picard, Executive Director of the Pejepscot History Center. These two episodes were originally recorded all the way back in 2022.  Today, in our second part of this series, we are excited to bring you our ...

In season three of our show, we are finally able to release our anticipated “Mapping Franco Brunswick” episodes, recorded with David Vermette, author of A Distinct Alien Race , and Larissa Vigue-Picard, Executive Director of the Pejepscot History Center. These two episodes were originally recorded all the way back in 2022.  Today, we are presenting you with the first part of our Brunswick adventur...

English Summary: In this episode, Robert Daigle shares his experiences with the French language in Maine and beyond. A French teacher at the Fort Kent Community High School and Valley Rivers Middle School, Robert grew up between two languages. As a child, he gradually lost contact with his maternal tongue due to an educational system that did not value French. He nevertheless made a commitment to...

In this episode, join Anna and Maureen as they interview poet Jeri Theriault on her new book, Self Portrait As Homestead. In this book, Jeri explores place, time, and gender as well as familial bonds, and her Franco-American roots. Theriault grew up in Waterville, Maine. Here's a link to Jeri's website to learn more about her work: https://www.jeritheriault.com/. Interested in looking more...

Welcome back to Franco-American Pathways, a podcast from the University of Southern Maine’s Franco-American Collection. In this episode of our Voices of Fort Kent series, we present to you our interview with Marc and Priscilla Chasse, with minimal edits. Even though it might be hard to imagine beautiful snowfall at this time of year, let us take you back to March of 2022, when snow was falling out...

Hello! and welcome back to Franco-American Pathways, a podcast from the University of Southern Maine’s Franco-American Collection. In this episode of our Voices of Fort Kent series, we present you with footage from our tour of the Acadian Archives with Patrick LaCroix and Madeline Soucie.  We also have some tape to share of a walk to Fort Kent’s historical Blockhouse. Unfortunately traffic and win...

In this episode, we are bringing you the second installment in our Voices of Fort Kent series, an interview with Patrick Lacroix , the director of the Acadian Archives at UMFK . We relished the opportunity to get to know our new colleague at the university’s northernmost campus. Patrick’s professional and personal history is impressive and, however reluctant he was to talk about himself, it is abu...

Learn more about the Bates Fabriques with our interviewees Norm Marcotte and Larry Charest. Welcome back to Franco-American Pathways! We know it is dark and cold out this time of year, so we decided now was the perfect time to talk about one of our favorite winter sports to get those neurons firing. Of course I’m talking about hockey! Lewiston has a long history of hockey teams, figure skating, an...

Bonjour, hello and welcome back to Franco-American Pathways, a podcast from the University of Southern Maine’s Franco-American Collection. Life at the university has had its twists and turns, but we are so grateful to be back to share with you our trip to Fort Kent last winter. Patrick LaCroix, who had then just taken up the post of Director of the Acadian Archives at the University of Maine at Fo...

Bonjour à tous et à toutes ! It has been a minute! This episode, set to air at the start of the summer, got waylaid. There was a Covid case or two, a trip to Hawaii, and shifting work schedules in the mix, but, at long last,  it is our pleasure to introduce the work of our spring intern, Corra. We are so proud of all that they accomplished for the Putting History to Work internship in the spr...

Bonjour! This month, we’re bringing you the second half of our Mapping Franco Biddeford episode! If you didn’t listen to part one, we highly recommend going back and giving it a listen; part two will make a whole lot more sense. Last fall, a few days after our Osher visit, Emma Bouthillette, Biddeford native and author, met the Franco-American pathways team and Libby Bischof to take a historic wal...

This month, we present you with the first part of one of the larger projects we tackled in 2021: a second Mapping episode, this time focusing on the city of Biddeford. Today, we take you back to the Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education with Dr. Libby Bischof, as well as another special guest: Emma Bouthillette , a Biddeford native, yoga teacher, and writer. Emma is the aut...

Our archivist, Anna, had the chance to sit down with Cindy Larock a few months ago, and what came out of it is just so special.  For those unfamiliar, Cindy Larock is a Franco-American who grew up in Lewiston, Maine. She has been actively involved in traditional music and dance from Quebec to Maine and all over New England for over 40 years. This month, we present you with Anna and Cindy's co...

Welcome back to Franco-American Pathways! We hope you had a great holiday, however you celebrate. In this longer episode, we present you with an interview we conducted in person, at our collection, with Ryan Fecteau , a young Franco-American and Maine’s Speaker of the House of Representatives.  Anna brought out a bunch of artifacts to share with Speaker Fecteau during our interview and we had...

Welcome to Franco-American Pathways, a podcast from the University of Southern Maine’s Franco-American Collection. This month, we spoke with Steven Riel , a New England poet of Franco-American descent, who just released his fifth poetry collection, Edgemere . We discussed Riel’s upbringing in Massachusetts, his relationship to his Franco-American heritage, in addition to the themes of memory, iden...

Welcome to this month’s episode of Franco-American Pathways, the second in our Mapping Franco Lewiston series. If you haven’t heard part one, we suggest going back and giving it a listen. It’ll give you some context for this month’s conversations. In part one, we focused on connecting the physical and cultural topographies of Lewiston in order to better understand its history; we visited Libby Bis...

In the first installment of this very special, two-part episode of Franco-American Pathways, we diverge from our traditional format to bring you a multi-faceted history of the Francos in Lewiston. We started by examining several maps of the city with Libby Bischof, director of the Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education , many dating back to the 19th century. We then embarked...

This month, we dive into the world of French language radio and newspapers in Maine and New England. We had the pleasure of sitting with Paul Paré , an Emmy award winning Franco writer and journalist, to talk about his life, his writing, and the history of French language news in Franco communities. You'll also hear a clip from a bilingual radio show, L'Heure Française, hosted by Marcel Raymond, a...

This month on Franco-American Pathways, we put the spotlight on music in the Franco-American community. We’ll listen to some examples of intimate performances that appear in many of our oral histories, and talk about the diversity and importance of music in Franco culture. We’ll take a deep dive into Acadian musical traditions with Robert Sylvain, who has so generously provided us with the music f...

Introducing Franco-American Pathways (Chemins Franco-Américains), a podcast that uses resources available at the University of Southern Maine’s Franco-American Collection to celebrate Franco history, culture, and stories. In this pilot episode, we talk about the work being done at collections like ours to preserve and protect oral histories and artifacts that document the Franco experience. We tal...