Bay of Fundy – Hopewell Rocks

We drove north from Cape Enrage, timing our trip to more or less coincide with low tide at Hopewell Rocks. Hopewell Rocks, also called the Flowerpots Rocks or simply The Rocks, are rock formations caused by tidal erosion in The Hopewell Rocks Ocean Tidal Exploration Site in New Brunswick. They stand 40–70 feet tall.

They are located on the shores of the upper reaches of the Bay of Fundy at Hopewell Cape near the end of a series of Fundy coastal tourism hubs including Fundy National Park and the Fundy Trail. Due to the extreme tidal range of the Bay of Fundy, the bases of the formations are covered in water twice a day. However, it is possible to view the formations from ground level at low tide. Part of the fun of seeing them is getting there. Your path starts in a very benign way at the visitors’ services building.

Set on the top of the bluff in the trees, the center gives you a glimpse of the Bay of Fundy as well as a sense of the geology holding everything in place.

A path then leads to a  view of the bay from a boardwalk projected out into the tops of the trees,

and finally to a panorama from the end, with low tide revealing the mud flats.

It’s impressive how much mud, not sand, defines the shoreline – and how much of this also floats as silt for miles in the water as the tides move back and forth in the bay.

Back at the top we follow a gentle trail through the woods,

and eventually arrive at a point from which we can see the rocks or ‘flowerpots’ as they are often called. A panel explains their creation and destruction by the tides.

The first view is mostly of beach,

and for contrast I borrowed a Wikipedia photo of the general area at high tide.

It’s an impressive amount of chocolate water that comes surging in; and humans being curious about such phenomena, there are some very explicit warnings – both traditional and of the modern variety.

We come to the top of a stair leading to the beach, from which we get an overview.

Seeing the people below gives some sense of scale. Since the tidal surge is so strong, the stair has quite a robust structure.

I especially appreciated that from below

and in looking back from a distance

Up close and personal, the flowerpots clearly dominate the conversation

and occasionally frame the view

the effect changing based on the particular setting and lighting

I loved some of the juxtapositions of these giant pieces of granite, such as this one through which you can again see the stair in the background.

The benign looking seaweed in the foreground above can, according to the warnings, be quite slippery and treacherous to walk on – we left well enough alone. And obviously, walking where rocks can fall off the cliffs is not a good idea; and those areas had been roped off.

There’s no question that the most intriguing forms are the flowerpots themselves.

Some, like this one, are still ’empty’ vases waiting to see what will happen.

Others, though are living up to their names.

It’s fascinating to see various stages of the process, as the tides gradually work their way in and around different projects and eventually separate them from the cliff.

This one almost doesn’t seem possible; but there it is.

At the end of the beach we’ve out-walked the cliffs and come to a much gentler shoreline where a landing and modest wooden stair bring us up to the top.

A short boardwalk bridge protects a natural environment,

and brings us back to civilization.

As it turns out, this part of the park, being lower and flatter, has some recreation area and serves as a staging area for tourism buses. We worked our way through this and gradually back up to the upper level, where there were some picnic and rest shelters.

Some architect had some fun with these. We decided to try out the visitor center for lunch instead,

give the science displays a quick once-over (tough to compete with our walk though),

and finish with the piece de resistance – the gift shop !

We didn’t spend much time there; we still had a ways to go for our next stop: St John.

On the map, the loop along the bay is where Hopewell Rocks is located and the short peninsula road sticking out is the side trip to Cape Enrage.

 

Bay of Fundy – Cape Enrage

Cape Enrage is the name given to the southern tip of Barn Marsh Island, an island located in Albert County, New Brunswick, Canada, along the coastline at the eastern entrance to Fundy National Park.

Accessible from Route 915 and as seen in the distance above, it is separated from the mainland by a large marshy floodplain and narrow tidal creek, seen below.

Small farms lie scattered around the periphery of the marsh; especially where there is some elevation above the flood plain. Some of the marsh is used as pasture.

The road climbs up the back side of the island,

and delivers you suddenly at the top around one end to discover a scattering of small buildings of various sorts. The place has a history – part reef and part lighthouse.

Cape Enrage derives its name from the large reef that extends south into Chignecto Bay, which causes the water off the point to become extremely violent, particularly at half-tide when the reef is partially exposed, as below, and the water is moving quickly.

Cape Enrage Lighthouse

Acadian sailors made early mention of ‘Cap Enragé,’ and after the Acadian expulsion, British settlers anglicized the name to Cape Enrage. During the 1840s, Cape Enrage won a contested debate as the location of the first lighthouse in Chignecto Bay, and the lighthouse was erected in 1847. A variety of boathouses and temporary lighthouse keeper’s houses were built over the next decades but were frequently damaged or destroyed in the region’s numerous storms and harsh winters. The lighthouse itself was heavily damaged in one storm in the 1840s and was extensively repaired. Given the height of this end of the island, the lighthouse structure itself didn’t need to be tall.

Likewise, the foghorn is a modest piece of equipment that sits on the ground.

We were told that it may look modest but you don’t want to step in front of it when it’s being used. The current lighthouse keeper’s house dates from 1952.

The lighthouse was automated in the late 1980s by the Canadian Coast Guard, and the last lighthouse keeper, Noel Justison, left the property in 1988. The property quickly began to suffer from neglect and vandalism, and by 1993 all of the buildings except the lighthouse were scheduled for demolition by the government. However, in 1993 a small group of high school students from Moncton, under the supervision of Dennison Tate, their physics teacher, began a restoration project at the site, renovating all of the buildings and slowly turning the site into a tourist destination. From 1993 to 2009 Cape Enrage Interpretive Centre, a not-for-profit, student-run organization, maintained the property and the students also offered climbing, rappelling, and kayaking in the summer months through the for-profit business, Cape Enrage Adventures. In 1995 the keepers house transferred from the Canadian Coast Guard to Province of New Brunswick along with 4+ acres of land. In the summer of 2004 the Canadian Coast Guard formally transferred ownership of the lighthouse to Cape Enrage Adventures and Cape Enrage Interpretive Centre. A walk around the property reveals some of the additions that have been made for the benefit of Cape Enrage Adventures.

The most dramatic are a couple of zip lines and towers, one (above) at the base of the stair to the lighthouse, and the other (below) at the top of the cliff trail

leading to the beach 110 feet or so below. Given the size of the tide change, there are lots of tide schedule and danger warnings about hiking on the beach.

Given the numbers of day-trippers that visit there’s also visitor information, snacks and

a whole series of bilingual explanatory panels about the site and things to do there.

On the edge of the woods we discovered some of the less obvious features, such as a hiking trail that leads up and over the island to the marsh side.

Along it are scattered a series of tent platforms where the students stay when they come to attend programs in the summer. I liked the way the trees and platform framing were the same color and value, as if the platforms had just grown there.

The trail didn’t fight the grade very much, so it was a peaceful walk.

As we completed the loop there were some great views out to the bay.

Finally the trail brought us full circle to the lighthouse and panoramic view of the bay.

Back in the car we came down to the marsh

and made our way across it to a small town

and the main highway leading to Hopewell Rocks.

The Hopewell Rocks, also called the Flowerpots Rocks or simply The Rocks, are rock formations caused by tidal erosion in The Hopewell Rocks Ocean Tidal Exploration Site in New Brunswick. They stand 40–70 feet tall.

More about them next time.

Moncton, NB

Moncton is the largest city in the Canadian province of New Brunswick. Situated in the Petitcodiac River Valley, Moncton lies at the geographic center of the Maritime Provinces. The city has earned the nickname “Hub City” due to its central inland location in the region and its history as a railway and land transportation hub for the Maritimes. The city was named for Lt. Col. Robert Monckton, the British officer who had captured nearby Fort Beauséjour a century earlier. A significant wooden shipbuilding industry had developed in the community by the mid-1840s, allowing for the civic incorporation in 1855.

The sculpture above  and below commemorates the founding of Moncton by providing a list of all the mayors from the beginning to the present.

A nearby historic building has been adapted into a museum about the founding and features of the area, and general tourist information.

In addition to this early regional transportation foundation for the community, we were attracted to see the local tidal bore, a regularly occurring wave that travels up the river on the leading edge of the incoming tide. The tidal bore has its own commemoration in the sense that the setting has been arranged so that people can watch this twice a day occurrence from this sidewalk balcony or from the stepped seating just off to the left. In this first photo the bore has not yet come around the bend of the river.

The bore is as a result of the extreme tides of the Bay of Fundy. Originally, the bore was very impressive, sometimes between 3 feet 6 feet in height and extending across the half mile width of the Petitcodiac River in this area. This wave would occur twice a day at high tide, travelling at an average speed of 8 mph and producing an audible roar. So we came back a little later when the tide arrived,

only to discover that modern life has changed things. Unsurprisingly, the original “bore” became a very popular early tourist attraction for the city, but when the Petitcodiac causeway was built in the 1960s, the river channel quickly silted in and reduced the bore so that it rarely exceeds 6 to 8 inches in height (as above). Kind of boring – but it did get us down to the river to appreciate the setting at a lovely time of day.

This view does also show the significant difference between low water (above) and the top of the bank to which the high water rises. The change is now a relatively calm process (except under unusual climatic conditions) but it’s still an impressive amount of water that moves in and out every six hours.

After all that drama we decided to walk downtown and find some dinner. Downtown buildings reflect the success of Moncton as a major regional center.

In 1871, the Intercolonial Railway of Canada had chosen Moncton to be its headquarters, and Moncton remained a railway town for well over a century until the closure of the Canadian National Railway (CNR) locomotive shops in the late 1980s.

Although the economy of Moncton was traumatized twice—by the collapse of the shipbuilding industry in the 1860s and by the closure of the CNR locomotive shops in the 1980s—the city was able to rebound strongly on both occasions. The city adopted the motto Resurgo after its rebirth as a railway town. The city’s economy is stable and diversified, primarily based on its traditional transportation, distribution, retailing, and commercial heritage, and supplemented by strength in the educational, health care, financial, information technology, and insurance sectors. The strength of Moncton’s economy has received national recognition and the local unemployment rate is consistently less than the national average. The City Hall below gives a sense of how Moncton continues to modernize and hold a strong regional presence.

But we were on a food mission and decided to give the Tide & Board a try.

It turned out to be a good choice.

Then we headed back to our B&B, a comfortable stay (hidden in the trees on the lower right) in a comfortable neighborhood of many styles.

Next: The Bay of Fundy