In the southeastern corner of Canada lie the Atlantic provinces of Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. The Atlantic provinces are often called the Maritimes. The word maritime means "bordering on or related to the sea." Each of the Atlantic provinces has a very long, jagged coastline, with many bays and inlets. These provinces make up only about 5% of Canada's land, and only about 10% of its population. Many residents of the Maritimes live along the coast, making their living from fishing and the fishing industry.
One of the world's greatest natural geographic wonders is located in the Maritimes: the Bay of Fundy. The Bay of Fundy is nestled between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Over 100 billion tons of water flow in and out of the bay on an average tide, twice a day. This creates a difference of as much as 53 feet between low and high tide at the head of the bay. This difference is taller than a five-story building!
When the tide goes out, it leaves hundreds of thousands of acres of ocean bottom exposed. Boats lie on the mud, shorebirds feed on crustaceans left behind by the tide, and it becomes possible to walk on the ocean floor! Several hours later the tide comes back in, rising more than the height of an average sized man every hour.
These mighty tides are the greatest on earth. At mid tide, the flow in the channel north of Blomidon equals the combined flow of all the rivers and streams on earth! As water moves up the length of the ever-narrowing bay, a tidal bore is formed. The tidal bore appears to be a wave traveling against the flow of the river!
High tides in the Bay of Fundy occur every 12 hours 25 minutes due to the changing position of the moon in its orbit around the earth. Suppose that during one week, high tide occurred at 12:01 A.M., Monday morning. When would the first high tide occur the following Monday?
Photograph Credits
Top two photographs:
Low tide & high Tide - The Hopewell Rocks.
Photos from Tourism and Parks New Brunswick,
www.TourismNewBrunswick.ca.
Bottom two photographs:
Low tide & high tide - Fundy National Park,
New Brunswick, Canada.
Photos by Allen Glazner, Professor of Geological
Sciences, University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill.