1 HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US! This autumn it is 50 years since the “new” Acadiensis began publication in 1971, with 95 pages that included an introduction by Acadiensis’s founding editor Phil Buckner (two years into his UNB career and one year from his PhD), three research articles, a report from the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, a document analysis, and a review essay on recent regional literature. The authors of the research articles ranged in career stage from emerging to near retiree: E.R. Forbes was still a doctoral student while teaching at the University of Victoria; Bernard Pothier was employed at the Canadian War Museum; and W. Stewart MacNutt, who had joined UNB in 1946 at the age of 38, was dean of arts and three years away from retirement. While we honour the work of the founders of Acadiensis with this anniversary issue, we also want to think about where scholarship of the Atlantic region is going next.

2 This issue marks this anniversary with a set of essays exploring the current state of study of the history of the Atlantic region with a look to the future. Jerry Bannister, Nicole Lang, Heidi MacDonald, Michael Poplyansky, Danny Samson, and Martha Walls come from a demographic cohort that followed the first “Acadiensis generation” of the late 1970s, and we are especially pleased to publish “dialogues” reflecting on aspects of the journal’s history organized by two doctoral students – Courtney Mrazek and Mercedes Peters. Since 2003, Stephen Dutcher has been managing editor of Acadiensis and his reflections offer insight with his experience with the journal since 1993 as an UNB graduate student advised by E.R. Forbes, as an author in the journal, and as runner of its everyday operations.

3 Since history is always written in the present, our anniversary issue also grapples with current struggles. The backdrop to producing this issue was the COVID-19 pandemic, which spurred fractious electoral politics and necessitated finding new ways of engaging students in our suddenly virtual classrooms. Incoming Acadiensis co-editor Peter Twohig’s research note “COVID-19 and the Labour of Care,” Raymond Blake’s offering of a historian’s take on electoral campaigns in Newfoundland and Labrador, and Janis Thiessen’s contribution on teaching with podcasts offer perspectives firmly rooted in the concerns of 2021.

4 The issue is rounded out with two research articles by Willeen Keough and Leanna Thomas that take us from thinking about ecomasculinity on the Newfoundland sealing ice to Acadian historiographical debates in fiction.

5 As co-editors in marking the 50th anniversary of this journal, we want to acknowledge the public work of our authors, past editors, and co-editors (noting long service by Phil Buckner, David Frank, Gail Campbell, Bill Parenteau, and John Reid); our managing editor Stephen Dutcher; French-language editors; review essay editors; digital communications editor (Corey Slumkoski is the only one to hold this important post!); members of the editorial and advisory boards; French copyeditor and translator Réjean Ouellette; and layout and design expert Roy Dawson.¹ Of course, we also want to thank the financial support of University of New Brunswick, the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and our subscribers and aggregators. Finally, we are especially grateful to the hundreds and hundreds of invisible and anonymous experts who have taken valuable time from their busy lives to provide careful and thoughtful reviews of submissions essential for the peer review of process. Thank you. Merci. Wela’lin. Woliwon.