The Ancestral Landscape of Sikniktuk

Month: March 2019
Organization: Lost Art Cartography
Products: ArcMap 10.4, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop

This map shows one of the largest saltmarshes on the Atlantic coast. For millennia, Mi’kmaq have lived in Sikniktuk (Chignecto), in the district of Siknikt, which means “drainage area”. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Acadians transformed large areas of saltmarsh into farmland by constructing dykes and aboiteaux. After the Acadian deportation in 1755, New England planters and Yorkshire settlers expanded the dykeland agriculture with the help of Acadians who had escaped deportation or who returned.