Every year thousands of tourists visit St. Martinville, Louisiana, not far from Lafayette. They come in to steep in Cajun culture, to hear French spoken on the street, and to visit the town’s several museums, but most of all they come to visit the places associated with Evangeline. There is an Evangeline state park, there the Evangeline Oak, and, in the town’s graveyard next to the Catholic church, there is Evangeline’s tomb, topped with a bronze metal statue of her likeness.

Evangeline first captured the attention of the nation in 1847, when Henry Wadsworth Longfellow told her tale in his epic poem. The story starts in 1755, in Acadia, or modern-day Nova Scotia. Longfellow describes Evangeline as “a maiden of seventeen summers, black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the thorn by the way-side. Black, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown shade of her tresses.” She is also modest and kind.  Her true love and fiancé is Gabriel, son of blacksmith. The couple are separated during “Le Grand Derangement”, when British authorities expelled thousands of French speaking Catholic citizens in one of North America’s lesser known acts of ethnic cleansing.

At first, the Acadians resettled in small numbers in cities across the Eastern seaboard, and Evangeline searches each for her love. She eventually gives up, settles in Philadelphia, becomes a nun and works at a hospital.  After many years, she finally encounters Gabriel once again—now a sick old man.  He dies in her arms, she soon follows him to the grave. This fact is noted on a brass plaque mounted to the Walnut Street building that still stands today in Philadelphia–the same kind of plaque that gives information about the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Longfellow’s poem was a smash hit, well known in the 19th century, and as much a fixture on school children’s required reading lists as Romeo and Juliet is today. More than that, his poem brought national attention to the plight of the Acadians, most of whom settled in Louisiana in much diminished circumstances, and became known as Cajuns, says Carl Brasseaux, director of the Center of Louisiana Studies at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette.

Now, Longfellow’s poem had nothing to do with Louisiana, in fact, he never set foot in the state. So how did Evangeline’s remains come to rest in Louisiana?  Was there some sort of exhumation, a movement of her remains from Philadelphia to her people’s new backyard by the bayou?

Not exactly. In 1907, Judge Felix Voorheis, a St. Martinville resident, committed to the page stories told to him by his grandmother. Grandmere Voorheis said that she was the adoptive mother of a girl named Emmeline Labiche –whose story that Longfellow heard, and who renamed her Evangeline, presumably for creative effect. In his version, the lovers reunite not in Philadelphia but in St. Martinville, under a Live Oak tree that stretches its branches towards the chocolate brown waters of the Bayou Teche. They embrace passionately and all was well until Gabriel (actual name: Louis) suddenly remembered that he had remarried in the years that passed. Evangeline later goes insane and dies.

Voorheis’ book, entitled Acadian Reminiscences: The True Story of Evangeline, was a huge hit in Southern Louisiana, says Brasseaux.

At that time, Cajuns were decidedly second-class citizens, the word “Cajun” itself was considered an insult, and their unique culture was disparaged. When Voorheis connected the immensely sympathetic Evangeline’s story with local Louisiana soil, her determination and good womanly behavior, was a rallying point of pride for Cajuns as a group. A folk heroine was born. “Evangeline provided the first outside validation of Cajun culture and became an important icon,” says Brasseaux. (This is true even though her story didn’t end well. Her story functioned in much the same way that the Diary of Anne Frank functioned for Holocaust survivors.)

Evangeline became and remains a common girl’s name in the area, her story became and remains a popular trope in local art and music, and  her name is affixed on everything from a state parish, to a particular blend of local coffee, to expressways, to dozens of car repair shops throughout Southern Louisiana.

The oak tree where Emmeline and Louis reunited still stands today, and is called The Evangeline Oak. It is the most visited spot in St. Martinville. Both versions of the story, Voorheis’ and Longfellow’s, are recounted on the sign near the oak, and both are retold dramatically by the tour guide who operates out of a nearby museum.

So which story is really true, a visitor asks? The tour guide shrugs and smiles and says no one knows for sure.

Surely, then, the grave would provide some evidence that the Voorheis version was correct? (The grave bears both the name Evangeline and Emmeline Labiche.) Who exactly is buried next to the church?

As it turns out, no one is. The grave is empty. The model for the statue that sits atop the empty grave was Dolores Del Rio, a Mexican movie star, who played Evangeline in the silent movie that was made from Longfellow’s poem.  The statue, a gift from cast and crew to the people of St. Martinville after filming on the movie wrapped.

The Live Oak, the site of their meeting, is actually the third such oak designated in Louisiana, and when I visited in 2006, the oak was scheduled to be retired because the parking lot around it is killing its roots. A new oak was to be designated, with full historical pedigree, as The Evangeline Oak.

Carl Brasseaux, who has exhaustively researched the history of Evangeline and has concluded that despite the naming of historical monuments and oak trees and brass plaques from Louisiana, to Philadelphia, to Nova Scotia, neither Evangeline nor Emmeline nor anyone else with a name that started with an E ever existed. Evangeline, the core cultural folk heroine of the Cajuns, was a composite character.

Many Southern Louisiana locals, including the former mayor of St. Martinville, passionately disagree. They believe that Longfellow, who never set foot in Louisiana, heard the true story of Emmeline Labiche and Louis Arceneaux and fictionalized it for his poem.

I don’t want to wade into waters as muddy as the Bayou Teche, but it seems to me that these arguments aren’t mutually exclusive.

Monkeys and dead fish are probably the last thing most visitors expect to see in Sydney, Australia. But those who veer a little off the usual tourist path with find both in abundance.

Monkeys and a multitude of other animals can be found at the Sydney’s Taronga Zoo  located on the Sydney Harbour, still within sight of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. Based on a bar-less system and offering a spectacular views of Sydney, this Zoo has been entertaining locals and visitors since 1916.

Covering over 40 acres, the best way to get an overview of the layout is by taking the Sky Safari cable car which operates from the top entrance to the Ferry Wharf from 9.30am to 5.00pm daily.

Dead fish, on the other hand, can be found right in the heart of Sydney at the Sydney Fish Market. Most locals know about the market, but very few, including the doorman at the Four Points at Sheraton where we were staying, know about the large Fish Auction that occurs every morning behind the market. The second largest fish market auction in the world (the largest being in Japan), it is a hive of activity from 5 am to mid morning. It’s open only to those in the industry, but visitors can get take part in a behind the scenes tour of the Sydney fish auction floor on Monday, Thursday, and Friday mornings.

Dear Perceptive Travel,

This morning I awoke to the spectacularly turquoise sea gently embracing the sugar-white, coral-strewn shore 25 feet from my Indian Ocean-facing verandah. Soon, the hot mid-morning sun would burn away the hazy grey clouds that blanketed the horizon, helping further illuminate a beguiling underwater alien world of neon-blue coral, fleeting reef sharks, and majestic tropical fish of every color, shape, and size. The snorkeling is, indeed, delicious.

I’m in the Maldives, at the Sheraton Maldives Full Moon Resort & Spa, and yes, it’s every bit the idyllic island paradise you’ve imagined. So, while I’d love to tell you more about it, like the faux-prehistoric lizards and the disturbingly large fruit bats that roam the grounds, the resort’s immaculately clean pool beckons.

We’ll have to catch up later; I know you understand.

Cheers,

Brian

Thirty years ago today — in fact, just about exactly, as I type this — Mount St. Helens erupted.

It was the worst volcanic eruption in the history of the United States, a five on the seven-point Volcanic Explosivity Index. As the summit and the volcanic bulge gave way, it created the worst recorded landslide in human history, traveling 70 to 150 miles and hour and covering 23 square miles, at an average depth of 150 square feet and a maximum depth of 600 square feet.  Ash fall covered 22,000 square miles, and totaled 1.4 billion cubic yards.  Pyroclastic flow, at a temperature of about 1,300 degrees, traveled as fast as 80 miles per hour and covered six square miles. It blew down enough trees to build 300,000 two-bedroom homes, killed 57 people, more than 7,000 animals.

(For perspective: The 1991 eruption of the Philippines Mt. Pinatubo was a 6 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index; it ejected ten times more material than Mount St. Helens. Iceland’s recent Eyjafjallajokull eruption merits a 4.  )

“Imponderables dust the air like volcanic ash,” intoned Dan Rather three days later,.  “It is an event that defies superlatives.” Quoting a geologist, he said,  “there is no record in geology in the last 4,000 years of anything like this happening before. The tremendous lateral blast is unprecedented.”

I was six years old when the volcano erupted, and although I was living in New York City, a continent away from Washington State, it was certainly one of my formative memories. I’d become a volcano buff thanks to the American Museum of Natural History, which had a planetarium show on Mt. Vesuvius and Pompeii that riveted me,  and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which reconstructed a frescoed bedroom excavated near Pompeii — an essential stop on my frequent visits.

Looking back on it, I realize that my grasp on the difference between fact and fiction was tenuous.  I was a huge fan of Greek and Roman mythology and Mt. St. Helens sounded as mythical to me as Zeus or Athena. Also, I’m pretty sure I conflated a planetarium show I’d seen on The War of the Worlds with the one I saw on Pompeii — it wouldn’t have seemed any more remarkable to me if giant aliens had invaded as part of the volcano eruption.

Some of that is just the confusion of an imaginative kid, but also, lest we forget, this was the tail end of the Cold War: I vividly remember a blast map posted on the wall at the  health food store that my mother frequented, graphically depicting the  concentric rings of destruction that would result from a nuclear bomb drop on Manhattan, with flesh melting and all. It was a scenario no less fantastic than anything H.G. Wells could invent.

Anyway, although I’m fairly certain that I’m now able to sort out science fact from science fiction, volcanoes are still endlessly fascinating to me. But while I’ve visited two of the worlds’ most active volcanic spots, Iceland and Hawaii, I’ve yet to do more than fly over Mount St. Helens en route from Seattle to Portland. (Although my face was smooshed up as far as I could get it against the plane’s window!) I’m determined to get there this summer.

In the meantime, I could barely breathe as I read this terrific guide to visiting the volcano, written by my friend Andrew Collins. There’s plenty to see and do, but the highlight will definitely be the Johnston Ridge Visitor Center  — it’s the closest to the volcano and you can look into the crater and see the dome! I can’t wait.

Only four days to go before setting off on the Dawn Princess World Cruise out of Sydney, Australia.

Tomorrow I’ll think about what to pack and make sure everything and everyone is organized during the time I’m away.

But I spent all of today deciding what books to take on this leisurely vacation. After all, when you’re about to be embark on 55 days at sea, choosing good reading material is crucial.

Here’s what I came up with…

A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain is based on Twain’s 16 month journey around central and southern Europe between 1878 and 1879 and offers a hilarious look at old world Europe.

W. Somerset Maugham: The Skeptical Romancer edited by Pico Iyer. Though best known for his dark outlook on human frailties in books such as Of Human Bondage and The Razor’s Edge, W. Somerset Maugham was also a curious and adventurous traveler who carefully documented his journeys and experiences.

Original Letters from India by Eliza Fey. Written during a 1779 voyage across the world from England to India, these letters  offer a fascinating glimpse into Eliza Fey’s woman’s gruelling 12 month journey.

Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark by Mary Wollenstonecraft. A deeply personal travel narrative by an 18th century British feminist (who also happened to be the mother of Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein)

Coast to Coast by Jan Morris. In her very first book, Jan Morris narrates her one year journey through 1950’s America by car, train, ship, and aircraft.

It’s a  pretty diverse list of books. But they all have one thing in common -  long distance travel in a bygone era.