During the summer of 1991, the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, conducted a survey of Maine Acadian culture through an inter-agency agreement with the National Park Service. Folklife fieldworkers designed a fieldwork strategy for the documentation of the contemporary culture of the Upper St. John Valley with emphasis on Acadian cultural resources. While tailored to deal with issues unique to the Valley, this data collection strategy was broadly similar to those employed by other folklife field projects. Fieldworkers concentrated their efforts on cultural expressions, guided by the idea that all communities use aesthetic experience to shape deeply felt values into meaningful forms (Hymes 1975: 348). These expressions, such as stories, songs, recipes, and houses, which have grown out of shared experiences and values, can serve as windows into a community's worldview (Hufford 1986: 19).

The primary work of the survey's fieldworkers was interviewing local residents, documenting cultural events, documenting sites and artifacts, engaging in participant observation, and analyzing archival materials. The report of the survey fieldworkers (Brassieur 1992) formed the basis for the 1992 public review draft of this volume.

The survey aggregated a large ethnographic collection consisting of 5,600 photographic images, 500 pages of field notes and catalogs, 40 hours of audio recordings, 50 pages of sketches, and an assortment of ephemera such as local publications, program souvenirs, and historical and contemporary press clippings on cultural subjects and issues. The collection will be preserved for posterity in the Archive of Folk Culture, Library of Congress. A reference copy has been placed at the Acadian Archives/Archives acadiennes where it will serve as a resource for further research, planning, and programming within the region.

As part of the folklife survey, data was collected relative to eight Acadian houses: Maison Heritage and the Val Violette House in Van Buren, Maine; the Morneault House, originally in Grand Isle, Maine; the Fred Albert House and the Ernest Chasse House in Madawaska, Maine; the Pelletier-Marquis House in St. Agatha, Maine; the Eloi Daigle House in Fort Kent, Maine; and the Daigle-St. Jean House in Clair, New Brunswick. For each of these properties, the survey collected information about the succession of ownership, the family history and genealogy of residents, and the business and civic dealings of the owners. Several of these houses are now owned by local historical societies, and others remain in private ownership. Several hundred transactions were reviewed utilizing various land and family records. Charts showing the succession of ownership and genealogies of most associated families were prepared. In addition, a glossary of Maine Acadian French terms related to vernacular architecture and cultural landscape was compiled. It provides a point of entry for understanding a range of material culture features both inside and outside the study area.