82 Success on the Edge

small businesses began to develop. This was something which had hardly happened since the late nineteenth century, and was to characterize the next thirty years, with no sign of diminishing as the millennium approached. A good variety of co—operative and capitalist businesses and institutions grew up to cater to needs and wants which had scarcely been felt previously. This diversification demonstrates independence as much as or more than co- operation, and relates to survival as well; it makes survival as a community more possible by providing for as many local needs as possible within the community and by local residents. In theory at least, there was less and less need to go elsewhere. It also shows how incomes, on the whole, had gone up. This tendency towards diversification existed elsewhere in Canada, of course. However it was seldom accompanied by another wave of co-operative institutions, even in places where formal co-operation had long been a part of life.

Third in importance among the events of the last thirty years of the century must be placed Tignish’s own religious renewal. Typically, it came some years after the upset caused by Vatican II. The Charismatic Renewal, a widespread movement characterized by more personal involvement in the quest for God, more free—flowing prayer, and more spontaneous expressions of feeling, reached Tignish early in the seventies, but it was only in 1981 that it was to make a greater impact upon the community. In a strongly church-based community such as Tignish, such changes would, and did have a widespread effect.

Lastly, this was the time when the Acadians enjoyed a short period of development which drew them back from the brink of cultural extinction on which they had been poised for so many years. While this period only lasted some fifteen years, after which diminishing