50 TOURING QUEBEC AND THE MARITIMES

reached in an hour and a quarter. We passed through Dorchester en route. Sackville is southeast of Moncton, and is the seat of a fine group of educational institutions, including Mount Allison University. It is also the home of a number of very important manufacturing industries.

A reception committee met us at the train and motored us to Fort Beauséjour, on the isthmus of Chignecto. This name Beauséjour is not, as might be supposed, derived from the nature of the scenery, but from an early settler, Laurent Chatillon, surnamed Beauséjour, after whom the southern end of the ridge had been named Pointe-a-Beausé- jour.

Our trip to Fort Beauséjour took us across the wind- swept .Tantramar marshes or dyke lands, made famous in song and story by the celebrated Canadian poet, born near Sackville, Charles G. D. Roberts. “Tantramar” is derived from the old French name “Tintamarre,” meaning a racket or hubub. It is believed that the name was given to the district by the early French settlers, because of the great noise made by the myriads of wild fowl which frequented the marshes in spring and autumn.

The far-famed Tantramar marshes along the Tantramar River, contain in the neighbourhood of 25,000 acres, and every year produce immense quantities of the finest hay, thousands of tons of which are shipped to the West Indies, Newfoundland and even Boston and other New England towns. ‘

Originally these meadows or marshes were simply bogs covered for the most part with water and stunted bushes. When the French settled here many years ago, they soon saw the possibilities, and immediately set themselves the task of reclaiming these waste lands. In this they seem to have been highly successful, and today remains of the old French dykes may be found at various points at the