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Land Reclaimation
Aboiteau
Aboiteau farming on reclaimed marshland is a labor-intensive method in which earthen dykes are constructed to stop high tides from inundating marshland.
A wooden sluice or aboiteau (plural aboiteaux) is then built into the dyke, 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.
Aboiteau farmingis 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 dykes to isolate areas of salt marsh from repeated inundation by the tides.
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
(From Wikipedia)
Settlers on the Port Royal River (now the Annapolis River) were the only agricultural establishment in Acadia at that time. Rather than deforesting high lands to make them arable land, the Acadians used the experience some had in marshland drying to establish a completely original farming system. These settlers, pioneers of water, dried up the marshes around Port Royal (around 5,000 acres) and claimed the sea, by the construction of dams or dikes, made land of fertile alluvium.
A French visitor of the 18 th century, the Sieur de Dièreville, left us a description of the construction of aboiteaux
"They plant five or six rows of large whole trees where the sea enters the swamps, and between each row they lay down other trees along each other and fill all the voids so well with clay well beaten, that the water could not pass in. They adjust in the middle of these works a [channel] so that it allows the low tide, the water of the marshes to flow by its impulse, and forbid to that of the sea to enter there "
(From D R Broussard Article)
"The construction of an aboiteau, because of the technology of the time required the implementation of a large amount of labor as well as the decision-making by certain individuals charged to lead. Once completed, there was a need for constant surveillance of the ravages of the sea. The system of building aboiteau and cultivating alluvial lands created a state of interdependence and a community spirit that forged the soul of the Acadian and tightened existing ties more closely."