The Bay of Fundy

The Bay of Fundy, which lies between New Brunswick and western Nova Scotia, is famous for having the world’s greatest difference in sea level between low tide and high tide, as much as 50 ft. With such rapid rising and falling every day, the water can get pretty muddy. That’s apparent in the first photograph, a view looking out from Hopewell Rocks, New Brunswick, a few minutes before noon on June 7. By then the fog over the land across an arm of the Bay was rapidly lifting; soon the clouds had dissipated.

The next morning, in Saint John, New Brunswick, we witnessed a strange phenomenon. People describe rivers as flowing downstream, with the down meaning literally from a higher elevation to a lower one, due to gravity. The Saint John River also flows from greater elevation to lower elevation, but as high tide approaches, the water surging in from the Bay of Fundy rises so much that the river reverses and the water temporarily flows in the direction we would normally call upstream. That’s what you see in the second photograph, where the river was flowing from the left, which is conventionally downstream, to the right, which is conventionally upstream.

Here’s a plaque that tells more about the strange and occasionally deadly phenomenon:

On a lighter note, I can’t resist saying that, photographically speaking, the Bay of Fundy makes for a bay of fun day.

© 2018 Steven Schwartzman