The Dykes of Remsheg Bay
For Marshy miles along the shore,
Where ebbs and flows the tidal Stream,
Stands forth a mute but manifest
Memorial to a peoples dream;
Where now but muskrats parth the weeds,
Where mallards nest in salt marsh hay,
There once Acadian kine grew fat
Beside the dykes of Remsheg Bay.
By Francis Grant
Nova Scotia is a beautiful peninsula on the East Coast of North America. It is well known as a tourist destination, and often advertised to be "Canada's Ocean Playground."
However, during the summer of 1755 one of the most famous examples of military genocide took place on these beautiful Nova Scotia shores.
Nova Scotia, or as it was then called "Acadia", was the site for what is known by the French as " Le Grande Derangement" and by the English as the "Expulsion of the Acadians". It was the removal of the French villagers; the English burned their homes and then transported the captured French, eventually spreading them along the Eastern Seaboard of North America
Credits:Today the waters lap peacefully along the shores of Wallace Harbour. Fishing boats and pleasure craft are moored at the Wharf.
In the late1400's, when European explorers first came to our shores, they found the land was already inhabited by Native Americans called the Mi'kmaq people.The Mi'kmaq people had already named this area, now called Wallace, "Remsheg".
Remsheg has been translated to mean "place between" because of the closeness to other Mi'kmaq villages - Pegweak (Pugwash), Malagash, and Tatamagouche.
Credits:Land had been granted to a Pierre Gaudier in 1689. Beginning in early 1700, French settlers called "Acadians" began to settle in the Remsheg area. Mostly farmers, their farming methods included dyking the fertile marshlands to plant their crops. Their dykes are some of the few remaining symbols of these hard working people.
Ownership of Acadia changed hand several times between England and France while the Acadians remained on these lands.
Credits:In 1748, a treaty was signed between France and England giving England ownership of most French lands in Nova Scotia. Britain became uncomfortable with British lands being inhabited by French farmers.
In 1755, the British Governor Lawrence, with aid from New England soldiers, decided to remove the Acadian farmers from Nova Scotia and disperse them along the eastern seaboard of North America. On August 15, 1755, soldiers arrived in Remsheg (Wallace). They captured the inhabitants and burned their houses. The Acadians were taken to Tatamagouche where the Acadian men voted to leave the women and children there. The men were marched off to Cobiquid (Truro), gradually getting back to Fort Cumberland in Amherst.
Eventually they were loaded on ships to be scattered among the American colonies.