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.

North to Canada

Earlier this year we headed for Eastern Canada to see the home of the Acadians, the dramatic Bay of Fundy tides, the Cabot Trail coastlines, and the dynamic city of Halifax. After exploring several planning strategies we opted to fly to Boston (and visit family there) and then drive a big loop through Maine, the Maritime Provinces, and then return to Boston along the Maine coastline.

We started north through New Hampshire, making our first stop for a couple of hours in Portsmouth, NH, a small coastal city of about 22,000 people.

United Church of Christ, North Church

The Piscataqua River is a tidal estuary with a swift current, but forms a good natural harbor. The west bank of the harbor was settled by English colonists in 1630 and named Strawberry Banke, after the many wild strawberries growing there. The village was fortified by Fort William and Mary. Strategically located for trade between upstream industries and mercantile interests abroad, the port prospered.

Portsmouth, New Hampshire Market Square

Once one of the nation’s busiest ports and shipbuilding cities, Portsmouth expressed its wealth in fine architecture. It contains significant examples of Colonial, Georgian, and Federal style houses, a selection of which are now museums. Portsmouth’s heart contains stately brick Federalist stores and townhouses, built all-of-a-piece after devastating early 19th-century fires. The worst was in 1813 when 244 buildings burned. A fire district was created that required all new buildings within its boundaries to be built of brick with slate roofs; this created the downtown’s distinctive appearance, much of which has been retained through the efforts of the city’s Historic District Commission. We enjoyed lunch on Market Square and the way in which the square is well defined by both old and new buildings.

I particularly liked the way that the street facade line has been maintained and that brick has been used to create a visual continuity against which new forms and detailing (eg. modern projecting glass bay windows) have been incorporated.

Between new and old buildings a small street has been converted to a pedestrian way.

This changes the whole scale of the environment for pedestrians and invites people to gather and spend time. Good graphics help as well.

After this pleasant interlude we headed north again, stopping to visit friends near Augusta and then driving to our first bed and breakfast of the trip, the Brewster Inn in Dexter, Maine.

We arrived after dark so I didn’t really see the inn until the next morning when we were greeted by a cool, pleasant, but misty day.

The Brewster Inn, Bed and Breakfast, Dexter, Maine

The house was originally owned by Ralph Owen Brewster. He was born in Dexter, Maine, the son of William Edmund Brewster, a member of the Maine House of Representatives, and Carrie S. Bridges. He was a direct lineal descendant of Love Brewster, a passenger aboard the Mayflower and a founder of the town of Bridgewater, Massachusetts; and of his father Elder William Brewster, the Pilgrim colonist leader and spiritual elder of the Plymouth Colony, and passenger aboard the Mayflower and one of the signers of the Mayflower Compact. Brewster, a Republican, served as the 54th Governor of Maine from 1925 to 1929, in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1935 to 1941 and in the U.S. Senate from 1941 to 1952. Brewster was a close confidant of Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin and an antagonist of Howard Hughes – quite a pedigree.

The Inn retains many of the comforts of its original construction, though I’m not sure of the authenticity of the colors and fixtures.

A small greenhouse passage led to the stairs to our room.

This is currently used for casual sitting, especially on a sunny day. The unusual ceiling moulding turned out to have a dynamic feature.

A model train circles the space, protected from falling by a small glass railing.

The house and grounds require enormous effort to maintain; and the current owners emphasize their focus on being sustainable in the process. Out back, a garden and classical grape arbor are in the process of being tuned up.

It looked to us as if the grapes were doing their part pretty well.

After breakfast we headed north again, aiming for our first Canadian stop, Fredericton, New Brunswick. And on this leg of the trip we encountered the scenery that we would see for the next two days – not what we had expected in the end of October.

We had expected to find the forests ablaze with fall color this far north; but everywhere we went the story was the same – the warm summer weather had lasted so long that fall had not yet started, even here. There were some dramatic views where an overlook allowed us to get above the highway.

This one is across a lake towards Mount Katahdin, the official end point of the East Coast Appalachian Trail. We could just barely see the mountain that day; so here’s a more dramatic view to give you an idea.

Crossing the border was a simple process in this part of the world.

With only one lane of traffic and just a few cars ahead of us, we were easily into Canada. Our tour of the “Maritimes” had begun.

Here’s an overview of what was to come.

I’ll walk you through it in the next post.