Arriving back in North Sydney, we headed out for Truro, Nova Scotia to see the tidal bore, a “must see” on everyone’s list! The Bay of Fundy is famous for its tidal bores. A tidal bore is a tidal phenomenon in which the leading edge of the incoming tide forms a wave (or waves) of water that travels up a river or narrow bay against the direction of the river or bay’s current. Stories abound that these can be as high as 14 feet! We arrived an hour early and waited on the banks of the Little Salmon River for the bore to arrive. To set the stage, many people wait for hours since there are typically two per day, and this one was scheduled for 12:57 PM with the next one during the middle of the night. As the moment arrived, a small wave of water about the size of the wake of a small boat started to move up the river toward us. The crowd stood silent in anticipation and broke into Peggy Lee’s famous song, “Is That All There Is!” Here is a video of the tidal bore. Be prepared to sing the song! Truro Tidal Bore, Nova Scotia. It is not our film, but it is what we saw!
The Bay of Fundy, as we wrote in our earlier posts, is amazing and does have the greatest tides in the world. “The Natural World, Greatest Tides: The greatest tides in the world occur in the Bay of Fundy…. Burntcoat Head in the Minas Basin, Nova Scotia, has the greatest mean spring range with 14.5 meters (47.5 feet) and an extreme range of 16.3 meters (53.5 feet).” The Guinness Book of World Records (1975).
We moved on to Five Island Resort and RV Campground in Five Island, Nova Scotia.
This was, without question, the most beautiful campground of our trip to date. The tides, if in or out of the Bay of Fundy community, were sensational. The campsite we enjoyed was at the end of the camp and 15 feet above the beach. We watched the commercial clam diggers work the clamming beds in front of us
so we enjoyed our rum drinks. The five islands were viewed directly from our campsite, where they were absolute jewels as the sun went down in the evening. We drove to a small fish store one mile west of the park. We purchased fresh clams and flounder for dinner, both very reasonably priced, and took them back to the campsite to enjoy for dinner. We spent some time at the park in the morning and then stopped at the fish market for more flounder.
The hummingbirds were all over the porch. Janice could not help but take many photo shots.
We then continued into New Brunswick, stopping at the Info Center. They recommended that we not miss the Hopewell Rocks, also known as the Flowerpot Rocks or just the Rocks in Hopewell Cape, Nova Scotia. The walk out to the beach is about ¾ miles and ends with stairs that take you down to the beach. The tide is out, exposing these fantastic rock structures with flowering plants and trees on top. The formations consist of dark sedimentary conglomerate and sandstone rock.
The large volume of water flowing into and out of the Bay of Fundy modifies the landscape surrounding it.
After the retreat of the glaciers in the region following the last ice age, the surface water filtering through cracks in the cliff has eroded and separated the formations from the rest of the cliff face.
Meanwhile, the Bay of Fundy advancing and retreating tides and the associated waves have eroded the base of the rocks at a faster rate than the tops, resulting in their unusual shapes.
We then headed out to Saint John’s, New Brunswick, passing through the town of Alma at the entrance to Fundy National Park. The cinnamon buns at Kelly’s Bakery are the sensation of New Brunswick, and of course, we stopped to pick some up. We had been told about a great seafood store but decided to ask at the bakery. The girl who helped us told us of several, mentioning the one we heard about, so we asked her for a reference; she said she shouldn’t tell us, but her uncle owned the one we heard about. We told her we would tell her uncle she sent us, and quite embarrassed, she said thanks. On to Butland’s Seafood, they had fresh lobster, just cooked, and bay scallops. The woman working the shop was funny as hell as she regaled us with fun stories about Alma. We bought a fresh 2-pound lobster, which was the best we had on the trip. We also took a bag of scallops to cook for dinner that night.
We drove through Fundy National Park on a family mission. John’s brother Willy had been doing the family ancestry of the Fairweather side of the family. (The Wilson side were horse thieves!) The family had a few relatives who were buried in the St John’s area. We drove to Sussex and found the Kirk Cemetery
having no idea where they were buried, we stopped at a local funeral home who gave us the name of the “person with the map”. With our new information on the grave locations, we took the Roadtrek into the cemetery
to find the Fairweather graves of Edmund and his son Hanford (John’s middle name), who died at ten years old. Interestingly, they were not the relatives Will thought they were.
We took photos and got the church’s name, which we then looked for. Some 20 miles later, we found a small Baptist Church and stopped for help. A nice gentleman next door came down the hill and offered to help.
There was another cemetery about three blocks away where he had mowed the grass for many years and thought there were a few Fairweather gravestones.
We drove down and found two more, Ethel Fairweather, married to Howard Long and Roy Fairweather.
On to the Anglican cemetery in town—no Fairweathers! Mission accomplished. We forwarded the pictures to Will, and he had four more family members to insert in Ancestry.Com. It turned out that they were all interrelated and had originally gone to New Brunswick from Connecticut.
Having finished the research of the graves, we headed down to St. John’s. There is a great city park called Rockwood, only five minutes outside of St. John’s. After setting up camp, Janice shelled the lobster we purchased earlier to make lobster rolls the next day. We opened a nice bottle of wine and fixed the scallops for dinner. The lady at the fish store told us the best local seafood was bay scallops and lobster. The scallops were just antastic and we enjoyed the beautiful evening. In the morning we drove into St. John’s to take in the sites. The interesting result of the Bay of Fundy tides is the Reversing Falls on the St. John’s River. It is similar to the tidal bore with the water running upstream against the river.
fWe then headed southwest of St. Johns to catch the ferry to Deer Island, NS which is on the route to Campobello a Canadian Island. At the end of Deer Island we found the ferry to Campobello and laughed that it was a barge with a tug strapped to it and it landed at the beach. We wondered if the RV would make it from the beach to the barge. But of course it did. We traveled out into the bay and it was fun to see the Maine coast to our right as we made our way to the beach.
The island was the summer home to the Roosevelt family.
Campobello offered a beautiful summer retreat where their family members could easily visit. From 1883 onward, the Roosevelt family made Campobello Island their summer home. Their son, FDR would spend his summers on Campobello from the age of one until, as an adult, he acquired a larger property – a 34-room “cottage” – which he would use as a summer retreat until 1939. It was here in August 1921, that he fell ill with a paralytic illness, thought to be polio, which resulted in his total and permanent paralysis from the waist down. Roosevelt did strive for seven years to try to regain use of his legs but never again walked unassisted. We visited the “cottage” and it was interesting. The FDR estate was made an international park run by both the US Park Service and the Canadian National Parks, half the employees are American and the rest Canadian. Leaving FDR’s home was a short drive to the end of the island and the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Bridge to Lubec, Maine.
BACK IN THE USA!!
