Minas Basin

The shallow Minas Basin lies at the eastern end of the Bay of Fundy, joined to it by the narrow Minas Passage. Its immense tides uncover broad mudflats and salt marshes, then flood them again within hours. On the southern shore at Grand-Pré, Acadian farmers began in the seventeenth century to drain marshland behind dikes fitted with wooden sluices. The basin became a centre of Acadian settlement until British authorities began deporting its inhabitants in 1755.