Aboiteau farming on reclaimed marshland is a labor-intensive method in which earthen dikes are constructed to stop high tides from inundating marshland.
A wooden sluice or aboiteau (plural aboiteaux) is built into the dike, with a hinged door (clapper valve) that swings open at low tide to allow fresh water to drain from the farmland, but swings shut at high tide to prevent salt water from inundating the fields. [1] [2] After several years, the rainwater drained from the marsh eliminates the soil's salinity, making it suitable for farming.
Aboiteau farming is intimately linked with the story of French Acadian colonization of the shores of Canada's Bay of Fundy in the 17th and 18th centuries. [3] The Acadians constructed earthen dikes to isolate areas of salt marsh from repeated inundation by the tides. Noted Acadian dikes include the diking of the tidal marshes at Grand-Pré (in contemporary Nova Scotia) in the early 1680s. [4] Around 1755, 13,000 acres of salt marsh were reclaimed using this dike for pasturage and intensive agricultural production. [5]
In the Kamouraska region of the St. Lawrence Valley of Quebec, aboiteau diking of salt marshes was closely tied to the modernization of agriculture in the 19th and early 20th centuries. [6]
A rare original aboiteau is the jewel of the West Pubnico Acadian Museums' artifacts. In 1990, local residents found a couple of boards sticking out of an eroding beach on Double Island, West Pubnico. They returned to the site in 1996 to remove the aboiteau, to preserve and display it at the museum. [7]
In summer 2023, during record-breaking wildfires, [8] the government of Nova Scotia ordered the closing of an aboiteau at the Windsor causeway “to maximize the water supply available in the event of wildfires”. [9] The aboiteau’s opening in March 2021 had caused nearby Lake Pisiquid to drain. [10]
A levee, dike, dyke, embankment, floodbank, or stop bank is a structure that is usually earthen and that often runs parallel to the course of a river in its floodplain or along low-lying coastlines.
The Bay of Fundy is a bay between the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, with a small portion touching the U.S. state of Maine. It is an arm of the Gulf of Maine. Its tidal range is the highest in the world. The name is probably a corruption of the French word fendu, meaning 'split'.
Lunenburg is a port town on the South Shore of Nova Scotia, Canada. Founded in 1753, the town was one of the first British attempts to settle Protestants in Nova Scotia.
Acadia was a colony of New France in northeastern North America which included parts of what are now the Maritime provinces, the Gaspé Peninsula and Maine to the Kennebec River. During much of the 17th and early 18th centuries, Norridgewock on the Kennebec River and Castine at the end of the Penobscot River were the southernmost settlements of Acadia. The French government specified land bordering the Atlantic coast, roughly between the 40th and 46th parallels. It was eventually divided into British colonies. The population of Acadia included the various indigenous First Nations that comprised the Wabanaki Confederacy, the Acadian people and other French settlers.
The Avon River is a small river in central Nova Scotia, Canada.
Windsor is a community located in Hants County, Nova Scotia, Canada. It is a service centre for the western part of the county and is situated on Highway 101.
Events from the year 1748 in Canada.
The Minas Basin is an inlet of the Bay of Fundy and a sub-basin of the Fundy Basin located in Nova Scotia, Canada. It is known for its extremely high tides.
The Tantramar Marshes, also known as the Tintamarre National Wildlife Area, is a tidal saltmarsh around the Bay of Fundy on the Isthmus of Chignecto. The area borders between Route 940, Route 16 and Route 2 near Sackville, New Brunswick. The government of Canada proposed the boundaries of the Tantramar Marshes in 1966 and was declared a National Wildlife Area in 1978.
The Isthmus of Chignecto is an isthmus bordering the Maritime provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia that connects the Nova Scotia peninsula with North America.
Beaubassin was an important Acadian village and trading centre on the Isthmus of Chignecto in what is now Nova Scotia, Canada. The area was a significant place in the geopolitical struggle between the British and French empires. It was established in the 1670s on an upland close to an extensive area of saltwater marsh. Settlers reclaimed the land to engage in cattle ranching and trade.
Grand-Pré is a Canadian rural community in Kings County, Nova Scotia. Its French name translates to "Great/Large Meadow" and the community lies at the eastern edge of the Annapolis Valley several kilometres east of the town of Wolfville on a peninsula jutting into the Minas Basin surrounded by extensive dyked farm fields, framed by the Gaspereau and Cornwallis Rivers. The community was made famous by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem Evangeline and is today home to the Grand-Pré National Historic Site. On June 30, 2012, the Landscape of Grand-Pré was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
Nova Scotia is a province located in Eastern Canada fronting the Atlantic Ocean. One of the Maritime Provinces, Nova Scotia's geography is complex, despite its relatively small size in comparison to other Canadian provinces.
Chebogue is a small fishing village situated above the marshes of the Chebogue River in Yarmouth County, Nova Scotia. Farming and fishing are the two main resources in the area.
Tusket is a small fishing community located in Yarmouth County, Nova Scotia on route 308.
Scotch Village is an unincorporated community on the Kennetcook River in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, located in the Municipality of West Hants. This area was part of Newport Township at the time of settlement primarily by Rhode Island Planters in the early 1760s. It was referred to as “Scotchman’s Dyke” or “Scotch Village”, due to settlement of early families of Scottish descent. Prior to the arrival of the Planters, Scotch Village had been the home of Mi'kmaq and Acadians.
LaPlanche Street is the historic connector between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, Canada. Located on the Isthmus of Chignecto, LaPlanche crosses the Tantramar Marshes between Amherst, NS and Sackville, NB. Historically, it hosted the key forts of peninsular Nova Scotia and continental Acadia and witnessed the Battle of Fort Beauséjour, the key battle between the two colonies during the Seven Years' War, and the Battle of Fort Cumberland of the American Revolutionary War.
The Raid on Grand Pré was the major action of a raiding expedition conducted by the New England militia Colonel Benjamin Church against French Acadia in June 1704, during Queen Anne's War. The expedition was allegedly in retaliation for a French and Indian raid against the Massachusetts frontier community of Deerfield earlier that year.
The old name Cobequid was derived from the Mi'kmaq word "Wagobagitk" meaning "the bay runs far up", in reference to the area surrounding the easternmost inlet of the Minas Basin in Nova Scotia, Canada, a body of water called Cobequid Bay.
The Wellington Dyke is an agricultural dyke in Kings County, Nova Scotia protecting over 3,000 acres (12 km2) of farmland along the Canard River between the communities of Starr's Point and Canard in Nova Scotia, Canada. Built by local farmers, it was begun in 1817 and completed in 1825. Today the dyke is owned by the Department of Agriculture of Nova Scotia in partnership with the farmers of the Wellington Marsh Body.