Aboiteau
Encyclopedia
Aboiteau farming on reclaimed marshland is a labor-intensive method in which earthen dyke
s are constructed to stop high tides from inundating marshland. A wooden sluice or aboiteau (plural aboiteaux) is then built into the dyke, with a hinged door (clapper valve) that swings open at low tide to allow fresh water to drain from the farmland but swings shut at high tide to prevent salt water from inundating the fields. Aboiteau farming is intimately linked with the story of French Acadian colonization of the shores of Canada's Bay of Fundy in the 17th and 18th centuries. In the Kamouraska region of the St. Lawrence Valley of Quebec, aboiteau diking of salt marshes was closely tied to the modernization of agriculture in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Levee
A levee, levée, dike , embankment, floodbank or stopbank is an elongated naturally occurring ridge or artificially constructed fill or wall, which regulates water levels...
s are constructed to stop high tides from inundating marshland. A wooden sluice or aboiteau (plural aboiteaux) is then built into the dyke, with a hinged door (clapper valve) that swings open at low tide to allow fresh water to drain from the farmland but swings shut at high tide to prevent salt water from inundating the fields. Aboiteau farming is intimately linked with the story of French Acadian colonization of the shores of Canada's Bay of Fundy in the 17th and 18th centuries. In the Kamouraska region of the St. Lawrence Valley of Quebec, aboiteau diking of salt marshes was closely tied to the modernization of agriculture in the 19th and early 20th centuries.