Moving day? Bay of Fundy style...

Locals along our coast in the upper Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, were recently treated to an increasingly unusual sight: a building relocation and re-purposing. Historically here on the Bay we've put our crazy tides to good use for moving homes and other large structures to new spots. As a child I remember hearing the story of a family who moved by barge about 20 km down the Bay while the children napped and the mom baked bread inside the house!

Such was the case for this 167-year old church which recently took a ride down river to become part of the new Avondale Sky Winery. The church was purchased by the winery owners for just $1 after it was decommissioned a few years ago. But if you think you'd like to do same, consider the challenges of moving 30 tonnes of history.

Looking forward to seeing St Matthew's in its new Avondale location this summer!

Tide watching from stilts

One of my favourite little corners of the Bay of Fundy universe is the village of Bear River, near Digby, Nova Scotia. Bear River is located about 6 km from the Bay of Fundy on an extreme tidal river.

Bear River is well-known throughout the region as a mecca for resident artisans and as Bay of Fundy's 'village on stilts'. I was recently in the area for several days and enjoyed both the view and the food at the Bear River Cafe, pictured here.

To learn more about Bear River, check out another local blog: Flora & Larry's chronicling their adventure moving from Toronto (pop'n 2 million) to Bear River (pop'n 800)

Jet boating thru Reversing Falls

I've had a busy few days filming new episodes for our Bay of Fundy Travel Show on YouTube. One of the sites filmed this week was Reversing Falls in the Fundy city of Saint John, New Brunswick.

Now i have to confess, I really don't think I fully appreciated what was going on here 'tide wise' until I hung around for 2 days. A lot of folks who visit Reversing Falls expect Niagara Falls going backwards....well, this isn't the case, of course! But the phenomenon is still really cool.

Basically what you've got here is three very different things going on at various times in the tide cycle: LOW tide: St John River flows out into Bay >> view rapids

SLACK tide: when the Fundy tide height and the river height are the same for about 20 min between high & low (and low & high) >> view dead calm water

HIGH tide: when Fundy's tides keep coming in and are higher than the river (and continue to flow another 100 kms upriver!!) >> view rapids in a different direction than the low tide rapids

The fact that the river (and its rapids) change direction is the 'reversing' part. The 'falls' part is actually happening sub-surface. There are massive waterfalls down there in undersea geology that cause crazy rapids on the surface! These rapids may look fairly calm from the viewing decks but they are HUGE and crazy when you are in them, like I was this week on Reversing Falls Jet Boat Tours (see picture!!).

Hope to have our YouTube episode for Reversing Falls next month!

A child's view of our BIG tides

In addition to high-low tide photos sets, videos of Bay of Fundy are great ways to represent our intriguing seascape. Here is a delightful video that shows the genuine curiosity and pure delight of a little gal exploring the Fundy coast with her dad. It warms my heart to see our young friends embracing our tidal coast like this!



Thanks to Dave at Annapolis Valley Audio Visual for sharing this video. Another enthusiastic Fundy fan!

I love high tide - low tide

It's that time of year when we're getting tonnes of requests for info about travel to Bay of Fundy. Probably our most common question is: "where do I go to see the tides?". I've made mention of the four tidal effects in a previous blog post (4 ways to see the tides).

Here's a good example of the Vertical tidal effect in Fundy: it's Annapolis Royal in Nova Scotia

....nothing like seeing those boats on the ground at low tide then bouncing dockside at high tide to give you the impression of how much water moving through on a given tide cycle.

Exploring Cape d'Or Lighthouse

Here's a post that can easily fit in both the 'lighthouse' and 'places to eat' categories of my blog: the Cape d'Or Lighthouse. Cape d'Or is one of the best places to see Fundy's tidal rips: wild, upwelling tidal currents.

The site also offers a panoramic view of the upper part of the Bay of Fundy in the exact location where it splits into its two smaller bays: Chignecto Bay and the Minas Basin. And, even better, there is an amazing restaurant in one of the former lightkeeper's houses (the other house is used as a tourist guest house!).

Here a fun video of Darcy, the operator of the restaurant and guest house describing what makes Cape d'Or so cool.

Although the lighthouse was de-staffed in 1989 (automated), there's been a fog whistle at Cape d'Or since 1875 to warn mariners of the Cape's extreme tidal rips. Now the site is a great reward for those who take the time to drive 20 minutes up the dirt road from the nearby village of Advocate Harbour, Nova Scotia. One caution though: the cliffs are quite extreme here, ranging from 300 to 500 feet sheer vertical drop so this is not a great place to visit with little kids.

High to low Bay of Fundy tide in 55 seconds

In an effort to help folks figure out how this whole Bay of Fundy tide thing works, I've found myself collecting both high/low photo sets and time lapse videos. I know...most people collect stamps or spoons, but hey, each to her or his own. I did some surfing on YouTube this weekend and located this great little time lapse video taken last summer from a great clifftop vantage point. It really gives a sense of the volume of water moving into the bay on one tide cycle. Take notice particularly at the end when the Bay appears to be filling up like a bathtub! Click on these links or use the side menu to see more videos or high-low pics.

How to 'see' tides - 4th way

4) One other way to see the tides is to visit a location where the tidal rapids, whirlpools or rips can be seen. The Bay of Fundy coast is definitely not smooth and linear; there are many craigy cliffs and sharp headlands jutting out into the Bay and, I supppose, in some ways interfere with the flow of water in and out of the Bay, or at the very least cause the water to flow in interesting patterns.

This is a photo of the "Old Sow: the largest whirlpool in the western hemisphere, the second largest in the world - second only to the Maelstrom Whirlpool of Norway. Located between Deer Island and Indian Island, this natural wonder can be seen from the shores of Eastport, Maine. It is called “Old Sow” because of the sounds that are heard from the churning waters. The best time to see the "Old Sow" is 3 hours before high tide.

Other places to see tidal rapids and rips include:
in New Brunswick

• by boat in the Passamaquoddy Bay (such as off the coast of St Andrews or between Black's Harbour and Deer Island)
  
• Reversing Falls in Saint John
  
• Cape Enrage

in Nova Scotia

• Cape d'Or near Advocate
• Cape Split - it's a 4 hr hike out there (near Wolfville)
• in the water passages of Digby Neck and Islands: Long Island, Brier Island

How to 'see' tides - 3rd way

3) Vertical Tidal Effect - This is the effect seen at most of our wharves around the bay. This is also best seen at high then low tide but if you are really stuck and can only visit for an hour or so, plan to visit at low tide. At low tide local fishing boats are sitting high and dry on the ground against the wharf while the tide is a mile or so away. Or at low tide thick gooey riverbanks and riverbeds of mud are exposed. See photos in the high-low photo section of my blog.

Some of my favourite harbours where this can be seen...
in New Brunswick:

• Alma, St Martins, Hopewell Cape, the Chocolate River near Hillsborough, Petticodiac River in Moncton, Sackville

in Nova Scotia

• Advocate Harbour, Parrsboro, Hall's Harbour, Margaretsville, Harbourville, Digby

How to 'see' the tides - 2nd way

Here's another way to 'see' the tides...

2) Horizontal Tidal Effect - this phenomenon occurs in many locations in the upper part of the Bay of Fundy but you need to allow 6 hours to appreciate it. Basically, it involves going to the same beach at both high and low tide to see the difference. If you are accustomed to the 1-6 foot tides in the rest of the world, this may not sound very impressive. However, with the volume of water we have moving in & out of the Bay (100 billion tonnes each tide, 50 ft tides) the horizontal effect can be a truly an amazing sight!

At low tide a vast expanse of the ocean floor is exposed. In the upper part of the Bay the tide can be a few miles away from where it was at high tide. And, of course, there is nothing like sea kayaking at high tide over where you were previously walking at low (see links).

Here are a few of my favourite places to explore the horizontal effect:
In New Brunswick...

• St Martins - eat 'world's best chowder' at the waterfront restaurant, explore the ocean floor and sea caves at low tide. Seakayaking available. You can also get out onto the beach at the Fundy Trail or at least see the intertidal zone from its various accessible lookoffs.
  
• Alma - explore the intertidal zone (that's what we call the exposed ocean floor) carefully on your own or take in a program there at Fundy National Park. Sea kayaking.
  
• Hopewell Rocks - the Rocks (as we locals call 'em) are probably the most photographed image of the Bay of Fundy. There is a great interp centre here as well as many acccessible lookoffs and, of course, access to the ocean floor and the famous 'flower pot' sea stacks. Seakayaking here too.
  

On the Nova Scotia side of the bay...

• Joggins - one of the coolest things about low tide at Joggins is the exposure of a vast expanse of fossils and geological reefs. Previous blog readers may remember me mentioning that the Joggins Fossil Cliffs will soon receive UNESCO world heritage site status. There is a fabulous new interpretive centre under construction there - should be open this fall. There is still beach access there now but it kinda helps to be with staff so you know what you are looking at! Kayaking in nearby Advocate.
  
• Five Islands - the stretch of Route 2 from the village of Economy, through Five Islands then to Parrsboro is one of the best places to see the vast intertidal zone. Here both Five Islands Provincial Park and Two Islands (near Parrsboro) are not surrounded by water at low tide. Recent readers will recall me mentioning the 'new' Not Since Moses' running event around the Five Islands at low tide. Don't try this without a guide!
  
• Grand Pre - One of the most easily accessible Bay beaches Evangeline Beach near Grand Pre, Nova Scotia. Grand Pre is the village near Wolfville. The nice thing about visiting Grand Pre is that during the 6 hr interval there is lots to do in the area. There is a national historic site in the village of Grand Pre itself - recalling the history of the Acadians (our French settlers who were expelled in the 1780s). This is also Nova Scotia wine country; there are several wineries in the area - one , the Grand Pre Winery, right in Grand Pre.

(added photo on Aug 10 - Five Islands at low tide)

How to 'see' the tides - 1 way

Speaking of questions from folks, this is probably the question Bay of Fundy-ites get asked the most: "Where can I go to 'see' the tides?". The answer to this question is more complicated than you may think. Over the next few days I will give you my best four answers to this single question.

1) Tidal Bore - even if you've never been here before, you'll probably have some pre-awarenss of the phenomenon known as the tidal bore: outflowing rivers flowing back upstream as the tide comes in. Folks who have never been to Fundy before tend to take our 50 foot tide measurement and combine it with the bore concept - then end up thinking that we have a 50 foot (think: tsunami!!) bore twice a day, which we do not. The actual rapids of a tidal bore range between about 10 to 12 feet which is still pretty cool.

Many rivers in the upper part of the Bay have tidal bores but, unless you're a local, you may have trouble finding them. Visitors usually like to visit those with some interpretation. Most of these are on the Nova Scotia side of the bay. I'd suggest:
1) the Maccan River about 10 minutes from Amherst where there are interpretive panels,
2) the tidal bore in Truro just out by the Palliser restaurant
2)the South Maitland Tidal Bore Lookoff where there is an interpretation centre and some panels.

Note that the bore time does not match either the high or low tide times listed on the tide chart for that community. The bore time varies depending on where you're perched to view it from the riverbank.

Personally, I think the best way to experience this tidal change is to go white water rafting in it...it's interesting to watch from the shore but it is hugely fun to raft in. If this is your kinda thing there are two companies I can recommend - I've gone with both: Shubenacadie River Runners and Shubenacadie Tidal Bore Rafting Park. They are located in the village of Maitland about 40 min from Hfx airport in the opposite direction from Halifax. so that'a about 1.5 hr from Halifax.

How to read the Bay of Fundy tide chart

I had an email from someone in Texas this week. They were looking for some tips on how to read a tide chart. This is, in fact, a bit tricky so I'm happy to explain:

1. Best source of tide times (in my opinion) - The Canadian Hydrographic Service, Dept Fisheries, You can zoom in on a map for any geographic area in Canada.

2. Then you can choose a community & the dates you want to visit from the menu bar.
A chart like this will pop up. This chart (for Parrsboro) is saying that low tide today is at 5:16 am and then again at 17:30 (5:30 pm). High tide will be at 11:26 (it will be a 33.8 ft tide), then high tide will be back at 23:44 (11:44 pm) - a 36.7 foot tide.

2007-07-27 (Friday)
Time	Height
ADT	(m)	(ft)
05:16	2.	9.2
11:26	10.3	33.8
17:30	3.1	10.2
23:44	11.2	36.7

What is a Tidal Bore?

The Bay of Fundy's tidal bore is one of many aspects of the world's highest tides that fascinates people.

A tidal bore is a wall of water that moves 'backwards' up low-lying rivers during an incoming tide. Tidal bores form when an incoming tide rushes up a river which is flowing down toward the sea. Thus we have the phenomenon of the river changing its flow before your very eyes, flowing in over the outgoing river water.

The height of tidal bores increases with the range of the tide and may very in height from just a ripple to several feet. A tidal bore (bore = crest or wave) is a natural phenomenon which is seen in very few parts of the world. Bay of Fundy tidal bores are seen in many rivers in the upper bay with every tide, twice every 24 hrs, year-round.

High-low tide video

While I was in an exploratory mood this week, I popped over to YouTube to see what sort of Bay of Fundy content I might discover. Found this ancient video clip from Britannica The voiceover is a bit groovy but it features an excellent timed video of the tide coming in so take a look! Another successful qualifier for my Bay of Fundy high-low tide collection!

What's a 100 billion tonnes of water?

Unless you've actually seen the tides here on the Bay of Fundy, it's a bit tricky to get your head around exactly what 100 billion tonnes of seawater looks like filling and emptying the bay twice a day. Short of having an aerial timed video of the tide moving in & out over 6 hours, I guess photos are the still the best option. (I'm totally up for doing the aerial if anyone has a spare helicopter they'd like to donate to the cause). There are many pairs of high/low tide photos that help to show the volume of water in our bay. I'll track them down and post them as I find them. These two photos were at Five Islands Provincial Park near where I live.

Cowboy Question #3

Q3: Why do Fundy's waves come inward toward the shore even when the tide is going out?

Even though the tidal current is actually drawing water away from the shore as the tide recedes, it's true, the waves continue to come toward the shore. Sets of waves, of course, move further and further off shore as the tide backs out.

This happens because waves are actually caused by wind not by the tide itself. Strong winds create rough waters, and light winds cause the water to be more calm. A lot of people who have never seen the tides, like my friends from western Canada, expect that the waves themselves turn around to take the water out!

A person can get a bit cross-eyed trying to figure this out!!

Cowboy Question #2

Q2. When the tide is high in the Bay of Fundy is it low on the other side of the world?

A logical question from our prairie visitors!

Actually it is more likely to be high on the other side of the world and low a quarter way round in either direction. This is because the moon produces two tidal bulges somewhere on the Earth through the effects of gravitational attraction. The height of these tidal bulges is controlled by the moon's gravitational force and the Earth's gravity pulling the water back toward the Earth.

At the location on the Earth closest to the moon, seawater is drawn toward the moon because of the greater strength of gravitational attraction. On the opposite side of the Earth, another tidal bulge is produced away from the moon. However, this bulge is due to the fact that at this point on the Earth the force of the moon's gravity is at its weakest.

Considering this information, any given point on the Earth's surface should experience two high tides and two low tides during each tidal period.

Cowboy Question #1

I had rancher friends visiting from western Canada (Alberta) this past week. They'd never been to the Bay of Fundy before and sure had some interesting questions about the tides. I like to think I'm pretty well versed in matters tidal but a couple of questions caught me by surprise. I'll research and answer these questions in my next few postings...

Q1. Why are the tides so much higher in this funnel shaped bay when there are lots of other funnel shaped bays on various coasts around the world?

The high tides of the Bay of Fundy have less to do with the fact that the bay is funnel shaped and more to do with two other factors:
a) the bottom topography and depth of the bay, and
b) the unlikely fact that the bay's natural resonance coincides almost perfectly in "wave length" with that of the Atlantic ocean.

So, let me explain...

The mouth of the Bay of Fundy is 100 km (62 miles) wide and between 120 and 215 meters (400-700 feet) deep. The bay gradually narrows and becomes more shallow until it splits to form Chignecto Bay and the Minas Basin. The distance across the bay in either of these two smaller bays is only a few km (miles) and the depth at low tide about 14 meters (45 feet).

The gradual tapering and shallowing constricts the tidal flow, causes the water to rise from an average of one meter (3 feet) found elsewhere in other tides to the 16-meter (52 feet) tidal range found at the head of the Bay of Fundy.

The second factor contributing to the highest tides....

Every basin of water has its own natural rhythm and at 290 km (180 miles) long, the time it takes for the tide to flood the length of Bay of Fundy is nearly identical to the time it takes for the tide to come in from the adjoining Gulf of Maine.

This resonance - the meshing of these two rhythms - means that the tidal range is amplified. Called the "Seiche Effect", this amplification is frequently compared to the wave action produced by a child sloshing water back and forth in a bathtub, each wave higher than the one previous. It is this comparison which led to the Bay of Fundy being called 'the world's largest bathtub'.

When the tide is fully out here in our harbour, it really does look like somebody pulled the plug on the tub!

Weir Fishing on the Bay

Early this morning I heard my neighbour rumble by in his pickup truck and, since the tide was a couple of hours from being fully out, I figured he was heading down to the beach to check his fish weir for herring, mackeral and assorted other fish. Mussels are certainly not the only seafood that we locals eat that comes from the Bay! Although weir-fishing appears to be a very low-tech (dare I say "biblical") way of catching fish, it is extremely effective. Last year, in a single tide, my neighbour told me that he caught 42 tonnes of fish! Chances are that if you live in North America and eat canned sardines (which are actually herring before they get bigger), those fish probably came from the Bay of Fundy.

People have been weir fishing in the Bay of Fundy for hundreds of years. When European settlers arrived in my area in the 1770s, they would have found our first nations (Passamaquody and Mik'maq) peoples already using brush weirs to catch fish.

So....what is a Weir?
A weir is heart or kidney shaped structure built from long poles and netting that acts to catch and concentrate fish. Fish swimming along the shore first encounter a net running perpendicular to the shoreline and alter their course to swim along it. This "fence" directs the fish into the mouth of the weir where they swim across the weir and encounter the back twine. Once inside the weir, the fish swim in a figure eight pattern always being directed away from the mouth by the curve of the netting (or twine).

Where I live, in the upper part of the Bay, the tide goes out so far that the weirmen actually walk out on the ocean floor a couple of hours before low tide to tend their weirs. There is still a few feet of water in the weir so they move around inside the net scooping up live fish with their hand nets. Since it's low tide they can drive their trucks out onto the beach of the intertidal zone and toss the fish into the fish boxes to take them fresh to market. If you're on the beach at the right moment you can try your hand at gathering fish out of the weir (it's not as easy as it looks) or, at the very least, you can enoy buying fresh fish right out of the water!!

The tricky bit about weir fishing is that the weir needs to be checked with every tide - otherwise the nets risk being damaged by pesky seagulls. It takes 6 hours and 13 minutes for the tide in the Bay of Fundy to go from high to low. Therefore, it's about 12 and 26 minutes from one low tide to the next low tide (or one high tide to the next high tide).

For example if the tide was:
high at 8 am this morning,
it would be low at 2:13 pm,
then high again at about 8:26 pm,
and low again at 2:45 am tomorrow
then high again just before 9 am tomorrow, etc.

So the tide times effectively move ahead about an hour every day. If the tide is high at noon today, it will be high around 1 pm tomorrow. This makes for some fairly inconvenient times for several days of the month when my neighbour has to go out to check his weir in the middle of the night!

In other parts of the Bay of Fundy, such as off Grand Manan Island, the weirs are fished with seining nets from floating boats because the tide doesn't go out far enough to expose the whole weir. The seine boat crew manoeuvers around the inside of the weir, deploying the net into the water. Once completely around, the bottom of the seine can be drawn tight (or pursed). The herring are then literally brought to the surface in the seine by bringing the seine back on board the seine boat.

I'll see if I can track down some drawings or pictures of the two types of related Bay of Fundy weirs.