Fundy National Park, New Brunswick

We entered New Brunswick from Maine and spent 2 days at Fundy National Park. I had heard from several people before that the national parks in Canada were nice and wow—were they right. The campgrounds have hook-ups, are very wooded and the sites are very private. We were quite impressed.

This is a large park so we could not even try to take it all in with just two nights and one day but we sure packed a lot in. We certainly wanted to experience the tidal fluctuation that the Bay of Fundy is so famous for. This body of water has the largest tidal fluctuation of any other body of water in the world. The next picture shows on google map where this park is located. We are about 150 miles up the bay from where we were at Campobello Island. The tides at Campobello average about 20 feet and here it’s about 30 ft.

We hiked to a secluded beach (Point Wolf Beach) to get high tide pictures. Then, we returned at low tide.  You can imagine our surprise when we returned to find dry (actually muddy) ground.  I tried to take pictures at the same locations with landmarks so you can see the comparison. Pretty impressive isn’t it? We were stunned when we walked over the hill and saw this cove completely empty!

I was impressed with the multitude of types of rocks and stones on the bottom of this bay at low tide. I think you can kinda appreciate what I noticed in this next picture.  Every single stone is different and unique!!  The dark rich brown colored stone really impressed me. A close look shows clearly it’s made of compressed tree bark with stones compressed between the layers of tree bark. Very interesting for sure. I would vote for this stone being formed at the time of a rapid catastrophic flood  🙂      If it could only talk.

This is the wharf in the nearby town of Alma, New Brunswick. Notice the metal braces they put under their boats so they don’t fall over. There is some water visible at low tide in these pictures because there’s a small river passing along here out to sea.  The actual shoreline of the bay has receded out from here about 3/4 mile.  All fishing and lobster work has to function around the tides here. These guys often have to work at night instead of daylight hours depending on the water levels. If you stay out too long and cannot get into port—tough—you gotta wait 6 hours. The water level fluctuates an average of 5-7 feet every hour!!! Makes boating very interesting here.

This was a beautiful covered bridge we drove through on our way to the Point Wolf Beach trail.

The red spruce forests here are so so beautiful to us. Your walks in these woods constantly smell like Christmas trees

Another highlight of my day here was a 3 hour photography trip —- sponsored by the national park and given by a local photographer. There were 6 participants and it was very helpful. This photographer has lived here since 1977 and has spent his career basically taking photographs in this park. To say the least—-he had a lot to teach about outdoor photography. It was great.

As I am writing this—Celia is driving and we are crossing over into Nova Scotia. We are definitely working our way further north!   The dashboard thermometer says 85 degrees right now— the last two days have been hot here— nights have been about 50—just perfect sleeping temperature!  We reach Cape Breton National Park tomorrow (Wed, 15th).