Sikniktuk

Sikniktuk includes the Isthmus of Chignecto, the narrow land bridge between the Bay of Fundy and the waters of the Northumberland Strait. For the Mi'kmaq it was a route between coasts long before European settlement. In the 1670s Acadian families established Beaubassin among existing Mi'kmaw communities, cultivating the marshlands beside the bay.

In the eighteenth century the isthmus became a contested frontier between French and British possessions. Beaubassin was burned in 1750, and the French built Fort Beauséjour opposite the British Fort Lawrence. British forces captured Beauséjour in June 1755; the fall of the fort preceded the deportation of Acadians and the destruction of villages in the district. The upheaval also displaced Mi'kmaq communities whose routes and lands had long centered on the isthmus.