Tintamarre National Wildlife Area

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The Tantramar Marshes are a National Wildlife Area on the southern part of the Isthmus of Chignecto, which joins Nova Scotia to New Brunswick and the Canadian mainland.

The marshes penetrate inland from the Bay of Fundy for 10 kilometers. Acadians, who called the region Beaubassin, built dikes in the early 1700s to stop the tidal influx of salt water, creating rich agricultural land on the deep sedimentary soils.

The name Tantramar is derived from the Acadian French "Tintamarre", meaning 'din' or 'racket', a reference to the noisy flocks of birds which feed there. The marshes are an important stopover for migrating waterfowl such as semi-palmated Sandpipers and Canada Geese. Today the marshes are the site of two bird sanctuaries.