Chignecto Bay, northeastern arm of the Bay of Fundy. The name comes from the Indigenous word sigunikt, usually said to mean "foot cloth," perhaps from a Mi'kmaq legend. The area around present-day Sackville, NB, was first settled by Acadians in 1671 and by Yorkshire Methodists about 100 years later.
The Petitcodiac River flows into the northwestern fork of the bay. A canal across the narrow (27 km) Chignecto Isthmus between the bay and Northumberland Strait was proposed as early as 1686. Henry Ketchum, a Fredericton engineer, built part of a proposed railway across the isthmus in the 1890s and interest in a canal was revived by a feasibility study in 1958. Fundy National Park is located on the northern (NB) coast of the bay.
See also Tantramar Marsh.