Wolastoq

rdf:langString Wolastoq

rdf:langString Wolastoq (Maliseet-Passamaquoddy: “The River of the Good Wave”), changed in 1604 by Samuel de Champlain to Fleuve Saint-Jean (English: Saint John River), is a river flowing within the Dawnland region for approximately 418 miles (673 km) from headwaters in the Notre Dame Mountains near the Maine-Quebec border through New Brunswick to the northwest shore of the Bay of Fundy. The river and its tributary drainage basin formed the territorial countries of the Wolastoqiyik and Passamaquoddy First Nations (named Wolastokuk and Peskotomuhkatik, respectively) prior to European colonization, and it remains a cultural centre of the Wabanaki Confederacy to this day. As the longest river between the Chesapeake Bay and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, the Saint John offered one of the best transportation corridors for First Nations refugees to retreat from the English colonization of North America's Atlantic coast. The Wolastoqiyik and their Acadian allies retreated upstream after English victories in the French and Indian War to establish the Republic of Madawaska on the remote upper river. Inhabitants of the upper river rejected both Canada and United States sovereignty until the present Canada–United States border was established by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842. The lower river has been developed for agriculture and industry, while the United States portion of the river upstream of Madawaska flows through the sparsely populated North Maine Woods. The historic isolation of Madawaska has helped preserve the Acadian French dialect.