Petitcodiac

The Petitcodiac winds through Mi'kmaq country towards the upper Bay of Fundy, where the great tides send a bore travelling upriver twice each day. Its tributaries and portages formed part of routes through the interior. Acadian families later settled along its banks, reclaiming marshland for agriculture with dykes.

In 1755, after the capture of Fort Beauséjour, British forces set about destroying Acadian settlements and deporting their inhabitants. At the village of the Blanchards on the Petitcodiac, Acadian militia led by the French officer Charles Deschamps de Boishébert fought a British detachment sent up the river. The encounter became part of the wider resistance to the expulsion. Three years later, a British officer travelling down the river recorded its remarkable tidal bore.