Fundy National Park, New Brunswick
We spent three nights in another new-to-us Canadian National Park called Fundy in the province of New Brunswick. Fundy National Park is situated on the Bay of Fundy which is known for having the highest tidal range in the world, averaging 41 feet (more than four stories) between each high and low tide.
When you’re in this area, as we learned, you can feel like your eyes are playing tricks on you: Boats that you see floating at a dock on one pass, are marooned on dry land at the next.
We learned that the shape and depth of the bay is responsible for this phenomenon: the shoreline of the bay gets narrower and shallower as the water pushes in, creating a tidal bore, which pushes the water up the bay and then sucks it out again, like clockwork, every six hours.
This makes for turbulent waters and huge mud flats which stir around nutrients and create great habitat for sea creatures and birds. Fundy National Park protects these areas, as well as a beautiful forest wilderness, along the Bay’s shore.
Our first afternoon in Fundy, Ben and I did a little exploring that included a short, but fantastic, hike to Dickson Falls. Most of the trail was on a boardwalk which allowed us to make quick work of the trail, appreciating the mossy rocks and flowing creek waters without needing to also suffer wet feet.
The next day, we really got to make the most of Fundy’s tides at Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park. We arrived at low tide and spent about ninety minutes meandering along the ocean floor.
It’s a wild experience, walking among rocks and seaweed which will once-again be under water in just a few hours’ time. In fact, while we were walking, we could see the tide change direction; flowing out as we first began walking and then reversing and beginning to return as we were finishing up. (Occasionally, people don’t make it back to shore before the return of the tide and get stuck out on an emergency platform for hours until the tide recedes again).
Hopewell Rocks is famous for its “flower pots” which are small islands whose “pots” appear when the tide recedes.
Walking the ocean floor is a muddy affair – although that is somewhat subjective. Three Finkel family members ended up much dirtier than the other two.
When we’d had our fill of walking, we took a little siesta, bathed the dog, and then returned to the same spot at Hopewell Rocks to see how the area changed at high tide. It’s pretty mind-blowing. Here, are photos taken from the same spot at both low tide (around 10 am) and at high tide (around 4 pm).
Then we set off to do the coolest activity in the park - kayaking around Hopewell rocks, retracing our own steps from the morning at low tide, but this time on the water.
About half-way through the excursion, the guide asked the group if anyone wanted to take a quick swim. Being progeny of Eli, both kids said yes and were out of their kayak seats as fast as it took to hand over their paddles.
We wrapped up the afternoon with chowder and lobster (roll!s!) at a local restaurant and a unanimous thumbs-up review of the day.
Our last morning in Fundy, Ray, Ben, Toby and I took a hike to Laverty falls which boasted a natural pool for swimming. Unfortunately, we weren’t the only people who thought that sounded like a good idea and we found the spot a bit more crowded than we were expecting.
Our last afternoon, we had planned to visit Fundy’s salt-water swimming pool, which would have been a perfect last hurrah in the park. But, it was closed, so our last hurrah turned out to be running a bunch of laundry at the park campground instead.
Thank you, Fundy, New Brunswick! We will never forget your incredible tidal landscape!
