You Say Barachois, I Say Barasway
By John Brazner
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Barachois or Barasway? Aerial view of Barachois pond, East Bay, Cape Breton.
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The recent warm spell has left ice conditions all over the Maritimes a bit uncertain and made a day of skating or pick-up hockey on our lakes and ponds a risky proposition. They will no doubt freeze up solid again soon, but until then it’s probably best to appreciate their natural beauty from the shoreline.
In Nova Scotia we are graced with a great number of lakes and ponds. There are over 6500 of them and they cover an area of over 2000 square kilometers – that is about five percent of the land area of the province. We are literally swimming (or skating, depending on the season) in freshwater here!
We are lucky to have so many different types of these aquatic environments as they are a source of fresh drinking water, our favourite swimming holes and critical habitat for a wide variety of plants and critters, to name just a few of the free ecological services they quietly provide for us.
One of these aquatic habitats that is particularly unique to our region is called a barachois (pronounced “bear-a-shwah”) pond. Barachois is an Acadian French word that is used throughout Atlantic Canada. It comes from Barachoix, which was the Norman French word for sandbar. Early Basque fishermen also used it when referring to a sand or gravel bar in front of a coastal pond where they often hauled up their boats.
It has now been anglicized in some places as barrisway, barrasway, or in Newfoundland as barasway, but the reference to shallow barrier beach ponds along the coast has remained the same. These brackish ponds only make up about one percent of all wetlands in Nova Scotia, but are found along most of the sandier portions of our Atlantic coast shoreline. There are many of these ponds along the Northumberland Strait, and along the Bras d’Or Lakes in Cape Breton and elsewhere in Atlantic Canada. In fact, Barachois Provincial Park in western Newfoundland was named for an especially outstanding example of these unique environments and is a favourite birding spot in that part of the world.
One thing you can count on with a barachois pond is that they will never be the same from one visit to the next. Their proximity to the coast and connection to rivers upstream means their salt levels are constantly changing. Large storms can breach their beaches and add a dose of fresh salt from the ocean just as big rains can dilute them with a blast of freshwater from the streams above. So, depending on recent weather conditions they may be mostly fresh or actually quite salty.
These varying conditions create quite a challenge for any of the plants or animals that are trying to live there. Lots of invertebrates, wading shorebirds and even some fish, like sticklebacks and gaspereau, call these ponds home, but the types and numbers of critters present reflect how fresh or salty the water is. The side closest to the ocean is typically the saltiest and inhabited by more salt loving species while the most inland part of the pond tends to be less salty and occupied by species that are happier in fresh waters.
Because the natural cycle in these ponds is one of varying salt conditions it would be wise to resist the temptation to artificially create and maintain openings through their barriers to the open ocean. This would permanently alter the pond ecology and lead to a very different community of plant and animal species than are typically present.
No matter which plants or animals happen to be there, if you visit a barachois pond you are sure to find something interesting to keep you entertained whether chasing a hockey puck or a speckled trout. Enjoy!
John Brazner is a fish and wetland ecologist from Herring Cove.
Coastal Issues Committee
Phone: (902) 442-5046
Fax: (902) 405-3716
How do you like your coast? Take action on coastal issues that matter to you. The Coastal Issues Committee meets at the EAC on the last Thursday of every month at 5:30PM.
