Spawned by lunar gravity and synchronized to the moon’s orbit of Earth, massive tides flow like clockwork into the Bay of Fundy, carving sculptures in the rocks. At low tide, you can walk onto the sea floor and explore the tide pools, check out the many rocks of many colors that are left behind when the tide goes out. Then you retreat to higher ground to watch the sea slowly pour back in. These tides are said to be the world’s highest; known to reach 52 feet (the height of a four-story building).
We left Nova Scotia and drove back into New Brunswick, again. We visited the Bay of Fundy on the Nova Scotia coast, now we will visit the Bay on the New Brunswick coast in the Fundy National Park. We will be spending two nights at a campground in the National Park. We will drive the Chemin Herring Cove Road along the Bay of Fundy and check out view points along the road. In the village of Alma, just outside the park, there is an area where you can walk the sea floor at low tide. And we will spend a day at Hopewell Rocks where you can watch the tides and see many rock formations caused by the tides, and walk along the sea floor at low tide.
After 4.25 hours and 223 miles we arrived at the Headquarters Campground inside Fundy National Park.
HEADQUARTERS CAMPGROUND
Most of this campground was closed for the season. The loop with full hook-ups was open and had about 5 sites that were available. The rest had long term people in them. Maybe they were park employees. This is a nice campground. The sites are level with trees and grass and are all pull-thrus. The sites were long and spacious. It was a nice atmosphere and it was comfortable. The light poles had very bright lights that would invade your trailer at night. You will need thick curtains or towels to block it out.
ALMA
Alma is a very small fishing village just outside the park. There are a few shops there and a harbor with fishing boats and a few tour boats. There is a beach there that is a great viewing spot to watch the tides. We never took the time to just wait in any area and watch the tides come and go. We had too little time and too much to do. So we viewed areas when the tide was in and then came back and viewed it again when it was out. This beach in Alma was one of the areas we saw at both high tide and low tide.
During low tide we walked on the sea floor stumbling over all the rocks and trying not to sink into the mud. We searched for heart shaped rocks and found a few. And in the harbor, all the boats were resting on the mud. Later when we viewed the area at high tide, the boats were now floating in the water and the sea floor that we had walked across earlier, was now a bay.
FUNDY NATIONAL PARK
There is a main road that goes through the center of the park to get to Bay of Fundy. Chemin Point Wolfe Road is a shorter road that follows the shore line of Bay of Fundy. Chemin, by the way, is French for street or road. Remember, New Brunswick is bilingual so their signs are in both French and English. We drove along this road and made several stops to check out the view. Unfortunately it was a foggy day when we explored this part of the park and the views of the bay and tides were not very clear. We took a side road; Chemin Herring Cove Road and hiked down to the cove. Towards the end of the road we drove through Wolfe Point Covered Bridge. The original bridge had burned down; this bridge was built in 1992.
HOPEWELL ROCKS
About 25 miles east of Fundy National Park is an area of rock formations that were created by the tides called Hopewell Rocks. We spent the day in the area to view the formations and the tides. Hopewell Rocks is a provincial park (like our state parks), not a national park. The area is a bit commercial with gift shops, restaurants, snack bars and a small museum. But it is nicely run and attractive.
There is a mile long walking trail along the cliffs. You can view the tides and formations from the cliffs. It was mid tide when we arrived. And it was raining and foggy. We started to walk along the cliff trail, but there was no view. So we returned to visitor center and had a nice lunch. By the time we finished lunch, it stopped raining, the fog was out to sea and it was low tide. We returned to the walking trail along the cliffs and checked out the views.
Our first view was Big Cove
The following pictures are copies of pictures in the visitor center museum. It gives you an idea of what the different level of tide looks like.
By the time we walked the 1 mile cliff, the fog was further out to sea and the tide was lower. At the end of the cliff trail, you can walk down a steep stairwell and walk the mile along the sea floor. However, there is not a stairwell at the other end, so you have to return along the beach and you have to return before high tide. There is a sign at the stair well telling the time of high tide and that you must return by 10 minutes before that time.
High Tide
So we went exploring, searching the sea floor for heart shaped rocks, looking at formations and taking lots of pictures.
Can you find our mascot; the “Traveling Turtle”?
Low Tide
This is the ‘end of the trail”. You can go no further.
There is a folk tale on how these formations were formed. There are two versions of that tale:
1. The Hopewell Rocks are unfortunate Mi’kmaq who was turned to stone by angry great whales that once lived in the Bay of Fundy. Enslaved by the whales, many of the Mi’kmaq tried to escape. Just as they reached the beach, the whales transformed them into the formations which exist today.
2. There was once a fearful monster who liked to feast continually on white porpoises. Frequently, he captured natives and made them his slaves. One day he ordered these slaves to go fishing porpoises for him. As soon as they were out of sight, the slaves escaped. In his fury, the monster lashed his tail and churned up the cliffs into these strange shapes.
We will be leaving New Brunswick, and the Maritimes Provinces, and Canada. We will be driving back into the United States. Our first destination in the US is the New England states. It is autumn time and we are exploring these states to see the many colors of fall!
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