Tantramar historic dike system an engineering masterpiece, historian says
CBC
Driving along the back roads of the Tantramar marsh on the border of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, you can witness a vast expanse of grass and farmland — but that wasn't always the case.
The only reason that area of the Isthmus of Chignecto looks the way it does is because of an engineering marvel that dates back almost 400 years to the 1630s.
James Upham, a Moncton historian and educator, says the dikes and aboiteaux built by the Acadians are what made the roads, railways and communities along the marsh possible.
"We take these things so for granted [as] these … semi-invisible bumps out in the marshes that we just, you know, go flying by at 110 kilometres an hour," said Upham.
"Every single centimetre of this had to be moved by hand and foot and muscle in some fashion."
The Canadian Society for Civil Engineering, in recognition of the significance of this feat, erected a monument on the Tantramar Marsh alongside an aboiteau that is believed to be one of the earliest.
Upham said it may be off the beaten path, but it is a testament to the hard work and resourcefulness of the Acadians who had to find a way to hold back the tides of the Bay of Fundy.
"You know these people looked at challenging situations and they really did find solutions in the problems," he said of the settlers who devised a way to create farmland and feed their families.
A dike, also called a levee, is a built-up structure that is designed to keep low-lying land from flooding.
At the time of the Acadians, a dike would have been built from earth and wood, and it would have stood taller than the highest tide to make sure the water wouldn't slop over the top.
An aboiteau is a structure and method of draining swampland.
It is essentially a dike, but it is built with a hole and a wooden flap.
The wooden flap automatically opens at low tide, which allows any water trapped in the marsh to escape but closes at high tide to prevent any more water from getting in.
The combination of these two structures allowed the Acadians to drain the Tantramar marshes and cultivate farmland.
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