The small town of Truro is the county seat of Colchester County and is located on the south bank of the Salmon River, which flows a few kilometres west into Cobequid Bay. The Salmon River is connected to the Bay of Fundy by Cobequid Bay, which forms the eastern end of the Minas Basin. As a result of the high tides in the Bay of Fundy, a tidal bore forms twice daily on the Salmon River, from the lower part of the river to the tidal limit at Truro. This remarkable phenomenon can be seen from the Fundy Discovery Site in Lower Truro. But why is the name Cobequid so present in the county’s toponymy, designating a bay, but also mountains, a tourist trail and even a toll road? It actually comes from the Mi’kmaq word Wagobagitk meaning “end of the flowing waters,” which referred to the Salmon River, in reference to the final flow of the rising tide. And it was in this place called Cobequid that in 1689, Mathieu Martin, the first child born to French parents in Acadia, obtained a seigneury at the eastern end of the Minas basin. The Acadian settlement of Cobequid was born…
Truro’s Acadian Heritage
In the first half of the 18th century, the Acadians successfully exploited the low-lying and fertile marshes of the region. In 1714, the agricultural colony numbered 23 families, or 175 people. By 1750, there were four times as many, spread around Cobequid Bay. In the summer of 1755, the dispersal of the Acadians and the destruction of their settlement by the British put an end to their presence in the region. As for the town of Truro, it was first populated in the 1760s by farmers of Scottish origin from Northern Ireland, then by American Loyalists, before becoming, in the following century, an important railway centre. Today, although they are a minority in the riding, Francophones can count on the Francophone Community Centre and Truro’s Ecole acadienne to bring their Acadian and Francophone culture to life. Yet, what traces remain of their Acadian history?
In Colchester County, 23 historical signs around Cobequid Bay mark the location of the villages, houses, dikes and mills of the former Acadian settlement. Panel No. 7W is particularly eye-catching. Entitled “La Paroisse”, it is visible from the road that crosses the town of Masstown, on the north shore of Cobequid Bay, about fifteen kilometres west of Truro. In this place is a real memorial treasure. In the field separating the road from the coast was the main village as well as the parish church and cemetery of Cobequid. And above all, the church had a bell of which a farmer once found remnants of molten metal while ploughing his field. It is the only known trace that remains of the churches in the Minas Basin burned down during the dispersal of the Acadians.
Header image: Salmon River Tidal Bore, at the Fundy Discovery Site (photo Deborah Searle, Municipality of Colchester).
Jean-Marc Agator
Paris, France
Sources
Arsenault, Bona ; Histoire des Acadiens (mise à jour de Pascal Alain), Editions Fides, Montréal, 2004.
Brown, Thomas J.; Nova Scotia Place Names (Salmon River, Cobequid), 1922.
Daigle, Jean et LeBlanc, Robert ; Planche 30 « Déportation et retour des Acadiens », Atlas historique du Canada, Volume 1, Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 1987.
D’Entremont, Clarence; The Story of the Acadian Bells: Those of Minas Basin and the Isthmus of Chignecto; text published in the Yarmouth Vanguard, February 27, 1990, Musée des Acadiens des Pubnicos.
Statistics Canada 2021: Only 7.3% of Truro’s 12954 residents are able to conduct a conversation in both official languages. This proportion is a little lower in the rest of the county. The general population of the county, like its French-speaking population, is growing continuously (Statistics Canada 2016, 2011, 2006…).