User:Freetheheel/Amherst Marsh (Nova Scotia)

The Missaguash and Amherst Marshes is a marshy area located approximately 10km northwest of Amherst, Nova Scotia on the Chignecto Isthsmus near the border between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The marshes cover an area of approximately 5000 hectares and continue to the west as the Tantramar Marshes in New Brunswick. The marshes are home to a number of wildlife species including waterfowl, fish, deer, and moose.

Geography
The Amherst Marsh is a boggy area contains several rivers and number of lakes. The two marsh systems are drained by the Missaguash River and the LaPlanche River, whose marsh systems are separated to seaward by structural till ridges but join near the upland edge of the marsh.

Tidings
Beginning in the 1800s, landowners on the Tantramar Marshes began draining marsh lakes with the excavation of ditches to desiccate bog vegetation. The high sediment load of the Bay of Fundy allowed rapid sedimentation of bog lakes using natural tidal action resulting in the transformation of thousands of acres of marsh to cultivatable farmland. Toler Thompson is regarded as the pioneer of this practice along the Tantramar River in the early 1800s, but the process was encouraged and attempted by landowners throughout the marsh. In the mid-1800s Judge William A. D. Morse and others began work on the reclamation of an area of bog along the LaPlanche river in the Amherst Marsh but was unsuccessful because of the large volume of water draining through the marsh. A similar fate met the Missaguash Marsh Company, which attempted to reclaim the Missaguash Bog through the tidal action of the Missaguash River starting in 1894, however land along the periphery of the bog was drained and cultivated for at least 35 years. Both the Missaguash Marsh Company ditch and Morse's ditch still remain as features in the marsh today.

Canal & Railway
A canal across the Isthmus of Chignecto was proposed as early as 1820, and considerable excitement surrounded the idea when it was discovered that the Missaguash and Amherst Marshes could potentially be drained through such a canal to Baie Verte to the north along the Tindish river. By the 1880s the idea of a ship railway began to gain favour, and with the promise of considerable government support construction began in 1885. The railway was never completed, however remnants of construction still exist across the length of the isthmus.