A Recollection from 2010

Looking at the Bay of Fundy



Until last Saturday I had never been further east in Canada than Montreal and I had never seen our Atlantic provinces or any of the bits and pieces that make them special. As a child living in Southwestern Ontario I had a picture of Peggy’s Cove that I had cut out of a magazine and pasted in an album. It was colourful and quaint and I’ve often thought I would love to see Lunenburg, the home of the Bluenose, but the opportunity or time to head east never presented itself. My trip wasn’t business and it wasn’t pleasure, it was just necessary and so I didn’t make the journey as a tourist. I didn’t expect to see the countryside or the seaside. 

I am a long time and staunch Stan Rogers fan and his sea shanties and ballads of the east coast had painted pictures for me, but until I was weaving my way around the turns and twists of Annapolis Valley back roads, I hadn’t felt the land. (I’m country born and raised and trust me there are times when one can really feel the land.) A roadside lookout on the north mountain provided a vista of the valley that was expansive and breathtaking. The colours of the farmland on the valley floor mixed with orchards and woodlands and tidal bores and it made a stunning view. It was a piece of Canada that I hadn’t seen or experienced. I didn’t know what I was missing.

Yesterday, I was in Sampson’s Bay, Nova Scotia, looking at the Bay of Fundy, well actually I was standing in the Bay of Fundy. The tide was out, way out, actually, way, way out and we were able to hike out over the stones that make up most of the beach area. I had no idea this body of water held the world’s record for the largest tides on the planet, but I do now. I think as a Canadian I should have been able to pull that piece of information out of my memory banks and I’m a bit disappointed in myself that I didn’t know or remember this fact. It’s a bit of world notoriety that’s worth knowing, because these tides are serious tides.

When the tide is out, as it was when I was there, we could see streams running down and across the beach area. They crisscrossed the beach and in some places optical illusions made the water appear to run uphill. We walked onto the beach, which is covered with rocks and stones of all shapes and sizes and the rocky beach gave an impression of softness, as the stones and pebbles and even the larger rocks were all rounded and smooth. The sun had been shining for most of the day and the stones were warm to the touch. They were smooth and warm, but our footing was unstable as the stones were piled up on each other and would shift under each step. In order to get to the actual sandy area of the bay floor we had to traverse a number of the water streams by using larger stones as steps. Now the footing was slippery and smooth but for a time we perceived. Not surprisingly, the further we went the soggier the sand became and, even though we were still far from the water’s edge, we stopped. I’m not certain it would have been wise to travel to the edge, although, the edge is where I’m most comfortable, just ask anyone who knows me well. On this occasion I was content to be halfway to the edge. 

Walking the bay must be a bit of a pastime as we met a number of people strolling the rocks and sand. They were collecting stones or taking photographs and families and couples dotted the shoreline. The seashore was quiet and I realized it was the rhythm of the waves that was absent. The muted gurgling of the streams was the only sound to be heard and it quickly evaporated into the air, leaving us surrounded by silence. The hues and tones of the stones and sand were muted, but in the distance the landscape was punctuated with dots of primary colours. The homes in the village shouted imperatives in blues and greens and yellows. It was a great Saturday and I was looking at the Bay of Fundy.