Aboiteau farming on reclaimed

marshland A marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous rather than woody plant species.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p Marshes can often be found at ...

is a

labor-intensive Labor intensity is the relative proportion of labor (compared to capital) used in any given process. Its inverse is capital intensity. Labor intensity has been declining since the onset of the Industrial Revolution in the late 1700s, while its inv ...

method in which earthen

dike Dyke (UK) or dike (US) may refer to: General uses * Dyke (slang), a slang word meaning "lesbian" * Dike (geology), a subvertical sheet-like intrusion of magma or sediment * Dike (mythology), ''Dikē'', the Greek goddess of moral justice * Dikes ...

s 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 Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon (and to a much lesser extent, the Sun) and are also caused by the Earth and Moon orbiting one another. Tide tables c ...

to prevent

salt water Saline water (more commonly known as salt water) is water that contains a high concentration of dissolved salts (mainly sodium chloride). On the United States Geological Survey (USGS) salinity scale, saline water is saltier than brackish wat ...

from inundating the fields. 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. The Acadians constructed earthen dikes to isolate areas of

salt marsh A salt marsh or saltmarsh, also known as a coastal salt marsh or a tidal marsh, is a coastal ecosystem in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and open saltwater or brackish water that is regularly flooded by the tides. It is domin ...

from repeated inundation by the tides. Noted Acadian dikes include the diking of the tidal marshes at Grand-Pré (in contemporary

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

) in the early 1680s. Around 1755, 13,000 acres of salt marsh were reclaimed using this dike for

pasturage Pasture (from the Latin ''pastus'', past participle of ''pascere'', "to feed") is land used for grazing. Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, cattle, sheep, or swine ...

and intensive agricultural production. In the Kamouraska region of the

St. Lawrence Valley The St. Lawrence River (french: Fleuve Saint-Laurent, ) is a large river in the middle latitudes of North America. Its headwaters begin flowing from Lake Ontario in a (roughly) northeasterly direction, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, connecting ...

of Quebec, aboiteau diking of salt marshes was closely tied to the modernization of agriculture in the 19th and early 20th centuries. 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.Musée des Acadiens des Pubnicos et Centre de recherche

References

Agricultural terminology Acadian history {{hist-stub