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Landscape of Grand Pré

Situated in the southern Minas Basin of Nova Scotia, the Grand Pré marshland and archaeological sites constitute a cultural landscape bearing testimony to the development of agricultural farmland using dykes and the aboiteau wooden sluice system, started by the Acadians in the 17th century and further developed and maintained by the Planters and present-day inhabitants. Over 1,300 ha, the cultural landscape encompasses a large expanse of polder farmland and archaeological elements of the towns of Grand Pré and Hortonville, which were built by the Acadians and their successors. The landscape is an exceptional example of the adaptation of the first European settlers to the conditions of the North American Atlantic coast. The site – marked by one of the most extreme tidal ranges in the world, averaging 11.6 m – is also inscribed as a memorial to Acadian way of life and deportation, which started in 1755, known as the Grand Dérangement.

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1404

The Landscape of Grand Pré is a polder created for farmland by the Acadian community. Originally a Marshland inhabited by native Mi’kmaq people, the reclamation of the land was carried out in stages in the 17th and 18th century.

It is considered the best example of a historic polder in North America. It is still a living Cultural landscape of farming.

Grand Pré is also the place of memory for the Acadian diaspora. These descendants of the 17th-century French colonists were deported from here in 1755 by the British colonial officers. 

http://www.worldheritagesite.org/sites/grandpre.html