Well, this was another one of those milestone anniversaries that seems hard to believe.

2010 marked the 35th anniversary of the founding of BeauSoleil, who have become the most famous and most acclaimed Cajun band in America, if not the world. Is it really possible that 35 years have passed since this group formed and set about their mission to preserve / revive Cajun music?

At any rate, as BeauSoleil have gradually attained their current status over the years, they’ve employed different approaches to preserving and popularizing Cajun music. And, back in the ‘70s, it really did need preserving.

When fiddler, singer and band leader Michael Doucet was growing up in Louisiana in the ‘60s, Cajun people faced terrible discrimination — they were looked down upon by the English-speaking majority, many of whom didn’t want anything to do with Cajun culture.

“Cajuns were treated like second-class citizens, because of the language we spoke, and the food that we ate, and because of our origins,” said Doucet when I last spoke to him in April. “Back then, the principals of the high schools refused to allow Cajun music to be played in their schools. But this music was handed down to us, so we were very tenacious about guarding this culture.”

Doucet (pronounced Doo-SAY) recalls that, when he was in high school, he could count the number of Cajun fiddlers on one hand, and if one of the Cajun music pioneers in Louisiana died, some of the culture died with them.

Initially, Doucet’s approach to keeping Cajun music from dying out was to hew strictly to tradition. “I was a really adamant traditional-minded person for a long time, a real stickler,” said Doucet, who brings BeauSoleil to The Ark on Sunday. “I didn’t want to have a microphone on my violin, and I only wanted to use the traditional bowing styles used by the old masters.

“But after years of being a really staunch traditionalist, we finally reached a point where we looked around and saw that we, and other Cajun bands, had really helped revive the music. So, at that point, once we had achieved that, we felt freer to let other ingredients in.”

Doucet also decided that, by then, the best way to keep Cajun music moving forward was not to treat it as an artifact, like something frozen in time — but to synergize Cajun music with other styles.

The group’s music is still mostly a mix of high-stepping, flying-fiddle dance romps, swaying Cajun waltzes and mournful laments — but, for many years now, they’ve been only too happy to also create new possibilities by stirring rock, zydeco, blues, Tex-Mex, Caribbean and country styles into their sizzling musical roux.

Listen to a selection of BeauSoleil songs:

“And, you know, in that respect, we’re not that different from the old guys,” he said. “In the ‘20s, some of the Cajun players drew on Native American music, and there were French versions of American popular songs.”

And Doucet learned from those masters — like Dennis McGee, Dewey Balfa and Amedee Ardoin. “Now, I feel like we’re like a cog in the wheel, and that it just rolls along, and we keep changing in order to keep the journey going.”

BeauSoleil’s last two albums, “Laissez Les Bons Temp Rouler” (2010) and “Make the Veiller” (2009) were both live recordings of 2007 shows.

But on their latest studio album “Alligator Purse” (’09), they again demonstrated their eagerness to collaborate with artists from other genres. The disc featured confabs with Natalie Merchant and John Sebastian, as well as with Garth Hudson and Jim Weider, both formerly of The Band, and Artie and Happy Traum (stalwarts of the Woodstock, N.Y., roots rock scene and friends of The Band).

And, as has often been the case over the last 20 years, the group worked up some Cajun-ized versions of rock songs. One was a Cajun rendition of JJ Cale's “The Problem,” and another was a giddy French-language reworking of Bob Dylan's 2006 arrangement of Muddy Waters' “Rollin' & Tumblin.” And “Les Oignon” was a traditional song that combined percolating Cajun-dance grooves with vintage New Orleans jazz.

Beate Williams of Tecumseh is a big BeauSoleil fan, and plays banjo ukulele, rubboard and triangle (and some fiddle) for the local Cajun music band Creole Du Nord — a group founded by Mark Palms of the Raisin Pickers.

“Doucet and the other band members are all amazing musicians, and he’s also a great entertainer, and has been very successful at taking this music ‘on the road’ to other parts of the U.S. and abroad,” says Williams, who, every year for the past four years, has attended "Cajun Week" in Elkins, West Virginia — an event where attendees “learn how to play, and dance to, Cajun and Creole music” — and where Doucet was a guest performer a couple of years ago.

“It’s also great to hear that the songs are still mostly sung in Cajun French, and that the younger generations are actually studying the language to keep it alive,” says Williams. “And Doucet has a fun way of introducing these songs to the non-French-speaking audience.

“Their music is fun and lively and makes you want to get out of your seat and dance, which is what Cajun music supposed to do.”

Kevin Ransom, a free-lance writer who covers music for AnnArbor.com, first interviewed Michael Doucet in 1993, for The Detroit News. He can be reached at KevinRansom10@aol.com.

BeauSoleil performing live at the 2010 Wheatland Music Festival: