MADAWASKA – Hundreds, maybe thousands, of Picards are expected for the Picard family reunion that will be held during the 24th annual Acadian Festival starting, Thursday, June 28, Acadian Day.

Picards have been invited to the family’s first reunion of its kind in Madawaska. They are expected to come from several Canadian provinces and many states to seek family roots which, in many cases, have been lost over the generations.

Registration for the Picard reunion will be held each day at Madawaska High School from Thursday through Saturday night.

Each year a different Acadian or French family reunion is held during the Acadian Festival. All of the families of the original settlers at Madawaska have been celebrated over the last two decades.

During the reunion, one highlight is huge genealogical charts that adorn the walls of corridors at Madawaska High School. Throughout the four-day reunion, people scour the charts looking for a lineage they know, and trace it further.

Over the years many people have found relatives they had not known about.

Some of the family reunions have drawn thousands of people to Madawaska.

The Acadian Festival also draws thousands to the St. John River town, long believed to be the original landing area of Acadians fleeing British Loyalist pressures farther south along the St. John River.

The Acadian Festival is a project of the town of Madawaska, coordinated by the Greater Madawaska Chamber of Commerce.

In anticipation of the celebration, the Acadian flag of red, white and blue with the gold star of Mary will be raised in the coming days on light poles, flagpoles, in store windows and homes. A focal point of the festival is the annual re-enactment of the landing at the Acadian Cross site in St. David Village, on the east end of Madawaska. The site of the Acadian Cross, where a white granite cross was erected for the 200th anniversary of the landing in 1985, was put in the National Registry of Historic Places in 1973.

There the Picard family will plant a tree, joining a score of other trees planted by families celebrating before them. The ceremonies start at 4 p.m.

Several hundred people usually attend the re-enactment and opening of the festival. This year that will be on the opening day of the festival, Thursday, June 28. A traditional bean supper and a program of traditional Franco-American music and entertainment follow the ceremonies.

At 7 that night a traditional heritage music concert will be held at the Centre Culturel du Mont Carmel at Lille Village. Lillian Labbe and friends will perform.

There will be a wine cellar that night at the American Legion Hall at Madawaska. There also will be fireworks during the evening and a New Year’s Eve Party at Jackie’s Bar and the Wonder Bar on Main Street.

On Friday and Saturday there will be historic tours of the St. John Valley through Fort Kent and neighboring New Brunswick before returning to Madawaska historic sites.

A golf tournament will be held on Friday at the Birch Point Golf Club, and a three-hour afternoon of fun and games in Madawaska’s Bicentennial Park. A huge “Party du Main Street” will start at 6 p.m.

On Saturday and Sunday there will be an all-day antique tractor and engine display at the Multipurpose Building.

There is also a Family Fun Day at Bicentennial Park from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday.

The Picard family will have its reunion banquet during the Acadian supper at the Knights of Columbus Hall starting at 5 p.m. That will be followed by a “Soiree du Bon Vieux Temps” at the same location.

Downtown, the street party will continue.

The Madawaska Recreation Department will have a mountain climbing expedition on Sunday.

In Madawaska, the Picards will have their reunion Mass at the St. Thomas Catholic Church at 8:30 a.m. Sunday. Madawaska’s firefighters will hold their annual barbecue at 10:30 a.m. at the fire station.

The parade ending the festival, St. John Valley’s largest parade annually, is scheduled for 1 p.m. Sunday on Main Street.

For more information on the Acadian Festival and the Picard family reunion, call the Chamber of Commerce at 728-7000.