Driving along the back roads of the Tantramar marsh on the border of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, you can witness a vast expanse of grass and farmland — but that wasn't always the case. The only reason that area of the Isthmus of Chignecto looks the way it does is because of an engineering marvel that dates back almost 400 years to the 1630s. James Upham, a Moncton historian and educator, says the dikes and aboiteaux built by the Acadians are what made the roads, railways and communities along the marsh possible.