We camped at Fundy National Park for two days, hiking and biking along the Bay of Fundy. The park is full of red pines and birch trees so thick in many areas that you can’t see more than a foot or two through the forest. These are the same trees we’ve seen all along the coast and into the interior as far we’ve gone. Away from the coast a little we’ve seen some farms. The soil doesn’t seem to have any stones in it, unlike our soil.
Our camp neighbors now live in Nova Scotia, but were originally from Newfoundland. They say to pronounce it say “understand Newfoundland,” because the accent will be in the same place. They helpfully told us several places to go while in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. We have found everyone we have met in New Brunswick to be extremely friendly and helpful.
Up the coast a few miles is Cape Enrage where we explored the oldest working lighthouse on the Bay of Fundy. Its green light is visible all the way down to St. Andrews. It sits high on the end of the cape taking all of the blustery wind. It is now computer operated, but originally it was powered by coal which the keepers had to haul up the hill to the lighthouse! The fog horn is interesting. There are two beams of light sent out from a spot on the lighthouse. If they bounce back, that indicates fog, and the fog horn will sound.
Further up the coast, almost to the end of the bay, is Hopewell Rocks. These are interesting rock formations that have been carved by the great tides going in and out. Most of them have trees growing from the top of them, so they are called “Flowerpot Rocks.” We arrived at low tides and walked all around the flowerpots. We stayed around for six hours so that we could watch the tide come in, and see the rocks at full tide. What was most impressive to me was how fast the tide rose. It would be easy for a careless person to get trapped by the rising tide!
Unlike farther down the coast like St. Andrews and St. Martins, this area is rocks and mud, not rocks and sand. This end of the bay is very rich in nutrients which wash out into the bay with the tides and help support the amazing amount of living things found in the bay. As many as 30,000 shrimp live in a 20 square inch slice of mud along with snails, worms, soft-shelled clams, and diatoms. Besides the rich nutrients in the mud, the many salt marshes here also provide lots of nutrients that are washed into the bay. There are many whales and all kinds of fish living in the bay.
Because the Bay of Fundy is funnel shaped - wide and deep at one end and shallow at the other, tides are pushed increasingly higher as they move up the bay. At this end of the bay, the tides are also about twice as high as at St. Andrews. At Hopewell Rocks they reach up to 46 feet, and up to 56 feet in the upper reaches of the bay. At St. Andrews they were about 23 feet.
One hundred billion tons of water pour in and out of the Bay of Fundy twice a day. That’s an amount comparable to the average 24-hour flow of all of the rivers in the world! Here in the bay, it’s enough water to raise and lower the water level vertically at a rate of up to nearly 6 feet per hour! That’s why people are warned to get off the ocean floor 2 1/2 hours before high tide!
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