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 (trade) also enabled medieval men to enter a trade previously dominated by women. Unlike women, men had the legal, capital, social, and cultural resources to command a quickly commercializing industry. In this context, some scholars explore the concept of Medieval brewing as a case study for a larger frame of the history of patriarchy. As Judith Bennett explains, "Brewsters were, in a sense, disabled by many institutions, all of which both were and were not patriarchal." The complex subversion of the alewife was subtle rather than a direct example of patriarchal oppression, offering itself as an example of historical complexity. While