Four people long past their prime; a Breton, a rabbi, a crossing guard, and Evangeline the Acadian, meet in a park and discover they have something in common: they are all living "in exile" in Montreal. It soon becomes obvious that the language of Acadia, like the pine tree Evangeline planted in the heart of the city, refuses to be uprooted. Evangeline embodies the spirit of her people and their will to survive any sort of exile and deportation.

« EVANGELINE : That's it, yes. That's what Cyprien used to tell me. He took to the sea like a man takes a wife, to try 'n find something out there, something a person looks for all his life 'n only finds once in a blue moon, at daybreak. That's what he'd say. He called it paradise too. (Pause) But after he was gone, I never found that paradise again, never. / THE BRETON : And what if it was still there waiting for us far beyond the open sea? / EVANGELINE : You only take to the sea once...and you gotta be young and strong. / THE BRETON : ...young, surrounded by the horizon 'n with a whole world to conquer... / THE RABBI : ...at an age you can't possibly know how dearly life is going to make you pay for each one of your paradises. »