It's maple season on Bay of Fundy

Well, so much for winter! The last couple weeks of warm winds and melting snow have heralded the arrival of "Sugar Season" on the Bay of Fundy....maple sugar season! Many families like ours have been tapping sugar maples for generations.

Our family has been making maple products here in the upper part of the Bay of Fundy for over 100 years. We only tap about 4000 trees (fairly small amount compared with other farms) but that's enought to keep our family, our town, our visitors and quite a few restaurants elsewhere in the province supplied with real maple syrup.

By the way, we jokingly call imitation table syrup telephone pole syrup since it compares that unfavourably with the real stuff!

Teen fun in Fundy? brrrrrr

It's true: most teens living on the Bay of Fundy are located in small towns and rural areas. But just because they're not near malls & movie theatres doesn't mean they don't know how to have fun.

It's a fairly common sight to see kids of all ages 'wharf jumping' on a hot summer's day. Since the water temperature is only about 10 degrees you can imagine that it's quite a refreshing dip. Needless to say, they don't linger but use the tidal wharf ladders to scoot back up and do it repeatedly.

Oddly, you never see adults doing this...brrrrrrrr!

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!

Cormorants & dinosaurs!

I certainly don't claim to know much about the millons of year that dinosaurs roaming Bay of Fundy - let's leave that to the fine folks at the Fundy Geological Museum and Joggins Fossil Cliffs (Nova Scotia) and the New Brunswick Museum in Saint John (New Brunswick).

Really though, if you look 'sideways' at some of today's animals, it's quite easy to believe that they evolved from dinosaurs. OK this connection may be tricky to see in your puppy or your budgie but how about a crocodile (not in Fundy!) or a whale (lots in Fundy).

For me, there is something about cormorants that makes me believe in dinosaurs. Cormorants are not most charming of birds: they're awkward, aggressive and strong....kind of pterodactyl-like? or so I think when I see them on my daily dog walk to the beach....

Bay of Fundy's longest driftwood beach part of Mi'kmaq legend

There is a Mi’kmaq legend that tells of a meeting requested by all the animals living in the Bay of Fundy: a meeting with Kluskap!

The animals living at the mouth of the bay said the water levels were getting higher, flooding the fields and swelling the brooks and streams. The animals living in the upper bay were saying, “There is no water in the bay - it’s too dry!”

Upon investigating, Kluskap found the dam of Kopit (Beaver) across the bay. Kluskap told Kopit what was happening on both sides of the dam and asked him to remove it. Kopit said that what happened to the other animals was of no concern to him. Kluskap said that it was of concern to him and that he had promised to correct it.

Kluskap enlisted the help of Putup (Whale) to take down the dam. When Putup did so the tidal water levels in the Bay of Fundy returned to normal as did the way of life for all animals.

In the upper Bay of Fundy near Advocate, Nova Scotia, there is a 4 km stretch of beach that
collects driftwood from all over the world. The unique occurrence of ocean currents and the
world’s highest tides continually deposit vast amounts of driftwood on this beach. To this day,
this debris is known as the remains of Kopit’s broken dam.

Legend & image: shared with permission from Gerald Gloade, Mi'kmawey Debert Cultural Centre

The ghost of Hopewell Rocks?

Just after inviting folks to submit ideas for guest posts a few days ago, I received this note from an anonymous reader about the possibility of ghost roaming around - not in an old Fundy sea captain's house but - on the beach at Hopewell Rocks no less! Check this out:

Five years ago, I was visiting Hopewell Rocks and saw a ghost, or something. I was walking along the low tide beach and saw a man caught up in a tangle of maybe barbed wire or driftwood (?). There were lots of people around but it seemd that no one else could see it. I literally shook my head and rubbed my eyes but it was still there! It disappeared when I walked toward it. It was incredibly unsettling. Have you ever heard of anyone having a similar experience?

Now I can't say as I have heard about a resident ghost at The Rocks. If you have, please feel free to comment!!

The mysterious Isle Haute

There's a mysterious island out in the middle of the upper Bay of Fundy that is the subject of some curiosity around here. Isle Haute is easily seen off the coast of Advocate Harbour & Morden on the Nova Scotia side of the bay, and also from Alma on the New Brunswick side.

Here are a few intriguing facts/rumours/folklore I've heard about Isle Haute:

1. there is buried treasure out there, dating from the 1700s. Check out an interesting article published in a local newspaper about this last month.
2. the island is topped by a huge fresh water lake - not true according to an Acadia Univ. biologist I recently discussed this with!
3. it was named by Samuel de Champlain (the first European adventurer - from France - who claimed to discover and settle the area in 1604). This makes sense: Isle meaning "island" in French, Haute meaning 'high'...tho' we locals tend say: "Isla Haute" for some reason...its basalt cliffs are about 320 ft high!
4. wild potatoes have been growing there for several hundred years (and were noted by the area's first peoples: the Mi'kmaq).
5. there are no wild animals out on the island any larger than a mouse.
6. the island was using as a training site by the Canadian airforce during the 2nd world war.
7. once used as a picnic location by many Fundy families, the island is now mostly just visited by researchers studying the plant life, birds, etc.
   

I don't have a boat that can get me safely into the one safe access point on the island (did I mention all the shipwrecks!) so I must share a couple photos I took recently from the mainland side. If any readers know of other myths about Isle Haute or, if you have photos to share from the island itself, please feel free to email me: bayoffundy@gmail.com.

Bay of Fundy's famous ghost ship

Any mention of the Age of Sail and Spencer's Island leads naturally to the true story of Fundy's famous ghost ship: the Mary Celeste. The Mary Celeste was 100 ft brigantine built in Spencer's Island in 1861 as the Amazon. The ship was thought to be cursed due to numerous misadventures, including a maiden voyage collision in London, a 1868 grounding in Cape Breton (after which she was repaired and renamed the Mary Celeste), and her most extraordinary adventure as follows:

In November, 1872, the vessel sailed from New York, bound for Italy, with its captain, captain's wife, their two-year old daughter (this was commonly done then!) and a crew of seven along with a full cargo of alcohol. A few weeks later the Mary Celeste was discovered moving at full sail toward the Strait of Gilbralter but completely abandoned. There was no sign of a struggle, fire or explosion of any sort. The valuable cargo, money box, ship's log, etc. still remained and folklore has it that dinner was cooking and the table was set!

Theories abound about what could have happened. The mystery was never solved but the tale, at the time, was widely popularized by a Sir Arther Conan Doyle (the Sherlock Holmes guy!) short story. Other books have since been written exploring the various theories about our ghost ship.

(above painting by an unknown artist of the Mary Celeste as the Amazon in 1861)

Bay of Fundy today in history

It's an anniversary of sorts today around the Bay of Fundy. A tropical storm, known as the Saxby Gale, struck our region 138 years ago today. Now I know you may be thinking 'big deal' but the Saxby Gale tale is still very much alive in local folklore. Fundy folk are known to comment (such as when we had our big Fall equinox tide last week): "yes, well, that was a really big tide but nothing compared to the Saxby Gale!"

From October 4 to 5, 1869, a Category 2 hurricane with winds 105 mph coincided with an unusually high tide to create the perfect storm. The hurricane and an additional 6.5 foot surge of tidal waters caused extensive destruction to port facilities and communities along the Bay of Fundy coast.

The hurricane also produced waves which, combined with the storm surge, breached dykes protecting low-lying farmland in the Minas Basin and the Tantramar Marshes, sending ocean waters surging far inland to inundate farms and communities. Sailing ships in various harbors were tossed about and/or broken up against wharves and breakwaters which were also destroyed. And over 100 people lost their lives. Fortunately such a storm has never again occured on the Bay of Fundy...

Massive moosehead in the Bay of Fundy

Just when I thought I'd seen every interesting perspective of the Bay of Fundy....

A chance Internet search by a Nova Scotia man living in Saskatchewan revealed a natural oddity that the rest of us had never noticed: the world's largest moose head.

John Patterson, of Meadow Lake, SK, couldn't resist sending Moosehead Breweries a Google satellite image of an area near Walton, NS that clearly shows a giant Bay of Fundy sandbar shaped exactly like the brewer's moose head logo. "What struck me was how detailed it was and to be in the middle of Moosehead country made it that much more intriguing," he said.

Ian Spooner, Professor of Environmental Geoscience at Acadia University in Wolfville, NS, said the naturally occurring phenomenon is actually a delta formed by an offshore accumulation of sediment enhanced by flood and ebb tide currents, as well as the shoreline geography. "The Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world so there is considerable energy influencing the deposit build up here. Fortunately the satellite photo was taken at just the right moment - a few minutes earlier or later and the image would look different."

"When Mr. Patterson e-mailed us we thought it was a joke, but when we checked the image ourselves we couldn't believe our eyes," says Moosehead President Steve Poirier. "...It's great to see that Moosehead is part of the Nova Scotia landscape," he chuckled.