Isthmus of Chignecto
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The Isthmus of Chignecto is an isthmus bordering the Maritime provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia which connects the Nova Scotia peninsula with North America.
The isthmus separates the waters of Chignecto Bay, a sub-basin of the Bay of Fundy, from those of the Northumberland Strait, an arm of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The isthmus is generally acknowledged to stretch from its northerly point at an area in the Petitcodiac River valley near the city of Dieppe, New Brunswick to its southerly point at an area near the town of Amherst, Nova Scotia. At its narrowest point between Amherst and Tidnish, the isthmus measures 24 kilometres wide. Because of its strategic position, it has been important to competing forces through much of its history of occupation.
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[edit] Geography
The majority of the lands comprising the isthmus have low elevation above sea level; a large portion comprises the Tantramar Marshes, as well as tidal rivers, mud flats, inland freshwater marshes, coastal saltwater marshes, and mixed forest. Several prominent ridges rise above the surrounding low land and marshes along the Bay of Fundy shore, namely the Fort Lawrence Ridge (in Nova Scotia), the Aulac Ridge, the Sackville Ridge, and the Memramcook Ridge (in New Brunswick).
In contrast to the Bay of Fundy shoreline in the west, the Northumberland Strait shoreline in the east is largely forested with serpentine tidal estuaries such as the Tidnish River penetrating inland. The narrowest point on the Northumberland shoreline is opposite the Cumberland Basin at Baie Verte.
[edit] History
The first European settlements on the isthmus were French. Prior to British control of present-day mainland Nova Scotia (after 1713), the isthmus was the location of a growing Acadian farming community called Beaubassin. The isthmus became the location of the historic dividing line between the British colony of Nova Scotia and the French territory. French military forces established Fort Beausejour on the Aulac Ridge in 1749 in response to the British construction of an outpost called Fort Lawrence on the ridge immediately to the east. Between the two ridges was a tidal stream called the Missaquash River which France generally accepted to be the boundary between the territories, although the powers had never determined and agreed to an official boundary. France also constructed Fort Gaspereau on the shores of the Northumberland Strait to effectively control travel on the isthmus.
On May 22, 1755 the British commanded a fleet of three warships and thirty-three transports carrying 2,100 soldiers from Boston, Massachusetts; they landed at Fort Lawrence on June 3, 1755. The following day the British forces attacked Fort Beausejour, and on June 16, 1755 the French forces evacuated to Fort Gaspereaux, arriving on June 24, 1755. They moved onward to Fortress Louisbourg where they were re-garrisoned on July 6, 1755. This battle proved to be one of the key victories for the British in the Seven Years' War, in which Great Britain gained control of all of New France and Acadia.
On the isthmus, they renamed Fort Beausejour as Fort Cumberland and abandoned Fort Lawrence; they recognized the superior construction of Fort Beausejour. Beginning the Acadian expulsion (the Great Upheaval), British forces rounded up French settlers for deportation and burned their villages at Beaubassin to prevent their return.
In 1758 Governor Lawrence issued a proclamation inviting New Englanders to come to Nova Scotia, settle on vacated Acadian lands, and take up free land grants. He also extended the invitation to New England soldiers serving in Canada whose enlistments had expired and were planning on returning home. Such settlers became known as the New England Planters. Following the end of the Seven Years War in 1763, the British created three 100,000-acre (400 km²) townships on the isthmus, called Amherst, Sackville and Cumberland.
The New England settlement drive was not immediately successful. After a few small groups arrived in 1760 and 1761, some families returned home, and the British government decided to look elsewhere for settlers. Between 1772 and 1775, more than twenty ships carried upwards of 1,000 settlers from Yorkshire, England to the new townships. The descendants of the Yorkshire emigration continue to be prominent in the area's development and history.
[edit] Eddy Rebellion
- See more at Battle of Fort Cumberland.
Early in the American Revolutionary War local guerrilla and colonial American forces led by Jonathan Eddy and John Allan attempted to take over Fort Cumberland and the Tantramar region in October and November 1776. Supported by George Washington, but with limited personnel, Eddy's attacking force consisted of "about twenty" Americans from Machias, 27 Yankee settlers from the Saint John River valley, 140 Malisseet and four Mi'kmaq, 21 Acadians from the Memramcook Valley and from the Allen family farm, and about 120 farmers from Cumberland, Onslow, and Pictou.[1] After a three-week-long siege of Fort Cumberland, the invaders were routed by British forces dispatched from Halifax and Windsor.
The Eddy Rebellion proved to be disastrous for the Acadian rebels. The British put eight of their houses and barns at Inverma Farm, Jolicoeur, to the torch. Since their release as prisoners from Fort Cumberland in 1764, they had been tenants of Willian Allan, the father of John Allan, leader of the Nova Scotia rebels. With winter coming rapidly, the Acadians were forced to relocate with their families to Memramcook.[2] Eddy, Allan and many of the other English-speaking rebels were also expelled, but the American government rewarded their efforts with land grants in Maine and Ohio.
[edit] Transportation
A key surface transportation route since the 1600s, the Isthmus of Chignecto was crossed by French and later British military roads to the Tantramar Marshes and along the strategic ridges.
In 1872, the Intercolonial Railway of Canada constructed a mainline between Halifax, Nova Scotia and Moncton, New Brunswick across the southern portion of the isthmus. It skirted the edge of the Bay of Fundy while crossing the Tantramar Marshes between Amherst, Nova Scotia and Sackville, New Brunswick.
In 1886 a railway line was built from Sackville across the isthmus to Port Elgin and on to Cape Tormentine. The latter was a port for the iceboat service. In 1917 a rail ferry service to Prince Edward Island was established there to connect with the Prince Edward Island Railway.
In the mid-1880s, the isthmus was also the site of one of Canada's earliest mega-projects: construction of a broad-gauge railway from the port of Amherst to the Northumberland Strait at Tidnish for carrying small cargo and passenger ships. This ship railway was never successfully operational, and construction was abandoned shortly before completion.
In the 1950s, while construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway was underway, a group of industrialists and politicians from the Maritimes called for a Chignecto Canal to be built as a shortcut for ocean-going ships travelling between Saint John and U.S. ports to the Great Lakes to avoid travelling around Nova Scotia. The project never progressed beyond the survey stage.
In the early 1960s, the Trans-Canada Highway was built on the isthmus to connect with Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. It was parallel to the existing Canadian National Railway trackage.
[edit] References
- ^ Ernest Clarke, The siege of Fort Cumberland, 1776, McGill Queen's University Press, 1995. pp. 215-
- ^ Régis Brun, De Grand Pré à Kouchibougouac, Éditions d'Acadie, Moncton, 1982, p. 59-60
[edit] External links
- History of Chignecto, Central Library, Nova Scotia
- Peter Landry, "The Eddy Rebellion - Chignecto and the American Revolutionary War", Blue Pete
- "The Chignecto Ship Railway", University of New Brunswick
Coordinates: 45°54′59.9″N 64°9′56.9″W / 45.916639°N 64.165806°W
