The Canard District
The Melansons’, Terriots’, and Le Blancs’ holdings all extended east or west, south of the Cornwallis River. North of this stream, another section was expanding, but more slowly, although conditions were favorable there for colonization.
As the Canard region become populated, crossings were made to reach the villages at low tide over the Cornwallis River. A road was made connecting the up-river settlements with Grand-Pré to the Gaspereau, where the principal centre of Minas developed, with its church, its protected landing-place and port for vessels, its store-house, and the office of the Deputy, where deeds and important documents were kept.
Thus Canard grew, and finally a beautiful church was built there. The Cornwallis River divided the parishes of Canard and Grand-Pré, but the whole region was rapidly growing in population and wealth, till it was entering upon the period preceding the Deportation. A thousand Acadians departed from Minas about 1750, so that in 1755 there were about three thousand remaining in the two parishes.