Special event planned for D’Iberville re-enactment this year

The city will turn back time on March 25 for a celebration of the 200th anniversary of Mississippi’s statehood and the 318th year since Pierre LeMoyne Seur d’Iberville landed on Ship Island.

The city’s annual re-enactment of the landing of d’Iberville, for whom the city is named, is getting a boost this year thank to an $8,000 grant from the Mississippi Humanities Council to create Discover D’Iberville — a Mississippi Bicentennial Celebration.

It comes the weekend before the regional Bicentennial Celebration South Concert on April 1 in Gulfport.

The city’s angle on the event this year is marking that the explorers came 118 years before the state of Mississippi.

“It all started here first” said D’Iberville City Planner Jeff Taylor, who is helping plan the event.

He and the committee rented one of the Biloxi Schooners, and they’re working to bring a small fleet of wooden ships to the Back Bay for the re-enactment. Plans are still in progress, but the landing is expected to start at about noon just to the west of the Interstate 110 bridge, with room for a crowd at the new marina parking area. Refreshments will be served after the landing.

Among the activities planned are:

▪ The head of the historical society from Longueuil, Canada, D’Iberville’s sister city, will be at the event along with Louise Blais, the consul general of Canada in Atlanta.

▪ Albert Naquin, chief of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Indians, the original settlers of D’Iberville, also will attend.

▪ Colonial re-enactors and citizens in period attire will add a touch of authenticity. When d’Iberville steps off the boat, it will be into a marshy area like the the French Canadian explorers would have found more than three centuries ago in 1699.

▪ Local students, especially 8th graders studying Mississippi history, are being encouraged to participate and will learn how to make costumes out of old clothes around the house. Prizes for the best youth re-enactor costume will include electronics and vouchers for food and entertainment.

▪ A Discover D’Iberville Journal will be published, incorporating the accounts of 300 years of history in South Mississippi, as written by Coast historians.

▪ Commemorative bicentennial tokens and an original artwork commissioned by the D’Iberville Historical Society will be created for the event.

“We’re again trying to reconnect with our counterpart city in Canada, Longueuil,” Taylor said, along with descendents of natives who were here when the Longueuil explorers landed. Representatives from the city — of 370,000 people across the river from Montreal — visited D’Iberville in 2007, and Taylor envisions more interaction between the cities, including tourism.

“They’re where we all came from,” he said.

This story was originally published February 21, 2017 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Special event planned for D’Iberville re-enactment this year."