Alewife (or kyack). In Atlantic Canada it is known as the gaspereau, from the Acadian French word "gasparot", first mentioned by Nicolas Denys. William Francis Ganong, New Brunswick biologist and historian, wrote: Gaspereau, or Gasparot. Name of a common salt-water fish of Acadia (also called alewife), first used, so far as I can find, by Denys in 1672. Nowhere can I find any clue to its origin. It seems not to be Indian. Acadians named two rivers after the fish, the Gaspereau River in Nova Scotia and the Gaspereaux River in New Brunswick. In eastern Massachusetts, Alewife Brook flows through Arlington,
Alewife Brook Reservation constructed a connection from the Alewife area through what is now Davis Square to Somerville Junction. Most of this connection is now the Somerville Community Path and Alewife Linear Park, but at its western end it passed through what is now Alewife Center and met up with the Lexington, after curving past the stub ends of Fairmont and Lafayette Streets. This new connection also had a southerly fork known as the Fitchburg Cutoff, passing just north of the present-day Alewife Station, crossing the now-removed Fitchburg-Lexington connection, and joining the Fitchburg mainline. A map from 1903 shows these railroads criss-crossing the