| Canard River | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Location | |
| Country | Canada |
| Province | Nova Scotia |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Source | |
| • location | Camp Aldershot |
| Mouth | |
• location | Minas Basin |
• elevation | sea level |
| Length | 15 km (9.3 mi) |
TheCanard River is a river inKings County, Nova Scotia,Canada which drains into theMinas Basin of theBay of Fundy between the communities ofCanard andStarr's Point. It is known for its fertile river banks and extensive dyke land agriculture.
The river has its source in a number of small brooks which flow from the sandy pine woods of what is now theCamp Aldershot military base, nearSteam Mill Village. The Canard River has a short length of 15 km but its lower reaches are wide and deep due to the enormous tides of theMinas Basin. The river was once tidal for most of its length but a series of dykes first built in the 1600s held back the tide which is now stopped near the river's mouth by theWellington Dyke. The upper reaches of the river are often referred to by the dykes which once spanned the river - Upper Dyke and Middle Dyke.
The Canard river was known to theMi'kmaq people as Apocheechumochwakade meaning "home of the black duck". The Mi'kmaq also used the mouth of the river for shad fishing.[1]
Acadians settled along the river in the late 1600s and called itRivière-aux-Canards after the French word for duck. They first built small dykes to claim salt water marshes for farmland at the upper reaches of the river near the communities now known asSteam Mill Village and Upper Dyke. A large cross dyke was built further down river at Middle Dyke. About 1750 an even larger cross dyke, over a mile long, was built near Port Williams. Known as the Grand Dyke it located where the current highwayRoute 358 crosses the river.[2] By this date, the Acadian village on both sides of the river totaled 750 people and included the extensive dykeland farms along the river as well as several mills.[3]
It was on this river that a parish was established in 1670 by the name of Saint-Joseph-de-la-Rivière-aux-Canards, later,Rivière-aux-Canards in short form. The best farms were located at the mouths of 'rivière aux Canards' river and the 'Saint-Antoine' river.[4]Rivière-aux-Canards was west ofGrand-Pré.
The Acadian settlement was destroyed in the 1755Bay of Fundy Campaign of theExpulsion of the Acadians. On October 27, 1755 fourteen transport ships embarked 1,600Acadians from the region ofGrand-Pré andRivière-aux-Canards, as well as 1,300 fromPisiguit andCobequid. They joined up with ten other ships in theBay of Fundy with 1,900 Acadiens from the region ofBeaubassin. The ships were over crowded with standing room only.[5] GovernorCharles Lawrence had given the order from returning. It was for this reason that the villages of Grand-Pré, Pisiguit, and Rivière-aux-Canards were burnt to the ground.[6] With no one to maintain the dykes, a severe storm in November 1759 beached the Grand Dyke and flooded up to the Middle Dyke which was badly damaged, returning hundreds of acres of farmland to tidal marshes.
TheNew England Planters took up the Acadian lands along the river in 1760. A government ship bringing supplies up the Canard River for the Planters, thebrigantineMontague was wrecked in the lower reaches of the river in December 1760. The Planter settlement on the south bank of the river becoming known asStarr's Point and the settlement on the north becoming known asCanard. The Planters repaired the Middle Dyke and rebuilt the Grand Dyke in 1782. In 1825 they built theWellington Dyke near the mouth of the Canard River protecting in total over 3,000 acres of farmland along the river from the tides of the Minas Basin.[7]
45°07′21.5″N64°26′07.7″W / 45.122639°N 64.435472°W /45.122639; -64.435472
