Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick

I had heard of the Bay of Fundy as a kid and have always wanted to see it in person. Mary was also interested in seeing the tides up close. We camped one night at Hopewell Rocks, New Brunswick, to be able to view some of the most dramatic tide changes in the world.

The Bay of Fundy is very large and rather shallow with mostly a red mud bottom. At Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park, however, there is a steep rock cliff face with hoodoos right off shore that dramatically show the effects and height of the tides. Here you can “walk on the ocean bottom” (as they say in their brochure) at low tide.

Mary and I live on a tidal inlet where we have over one-half mile of mud flats at low tide and almost 10 feet of water at a good high tide. We know tidal variations and weren’t sure we would be impressed. Because of our tide flats we have a sign on our driveway in Olympia that reads “Acres of Mud”.

The Bay of Fundy at Hopewell Rocks is certainly impressive. The huge bay almost seems to empty at low tide, and it is very fun to walk on the “ocean bottom” along the cliff face and hoodoos. The rocks and mud are very red and the water is also very red and muddy. In fact there were several businesses using the phrase “chocolate river” in their titles.

We saw the shoreline a couple of hours after high tide the evening of our arrival, and the next morning we got to see the striking difference in the shoreline and the whole bay. The tidal variation is almost fifty feet. We decided if Olympia is ‘Acres of Mud’ then Fundy is ‘Miles of Mud’.

We noticed a curious thing in Canada. If you go into a liquor store, the prices are about twice what we pay in WA state, which is high for the US. But, if you order a glass of wine or beer in a bar or restaurant, it was usually much less than in the US. Odd………We also got to sample new fare at McDonalds. When we saw the sign on the road, we couldn’t resist – McLobster. It was actually good!

It was also a lot of fun watching the news in Canada. Mary thought we got better coverage about world issues and good coverage on things in the US. We even saw Hilary Clinton on a late night talk show and the interviewer was asking very important questions about US policy. It was a great show.