St. John and Hopewell Rocks, New Brunswick

We spent our last few days in Canada in St. John, New Brunswick, at the nice RV park in Rockwood Park. This large city park has miles of walking trails and several small lakes. Our main reason for spending time in St. John was to research Tom's Orkney Island ancestors who immigrated to the area in the early 1800's, and others who were Tories evicted from the US after the Revolutionary War. Tom's fifth great-grandfather is buried in the Old Burial Grounds, which provide a nice green respite right in the middle of downtown St. John.

The St. John River flows through the city and out into the Bay of Fundy, which is known for its extreme tides. We visited the Reversing Falls, where the river is squeezed through a narrow gap, to see the river actually reverse its flow when the incoming tide overcomes the outgoing river:

At 12:35 pm, the incoming tide has not yet overcome the flow of the river. Note the partially submerged rock with water swirling around.

By 3:52 pm, the tide was near high, and the rock is submerged. The St. John River is squeezed by the narrow gap at this point, and the river bed is very rocky, causing lots of whirlpools.

A few minutes after the previous photo, the incoming tide has reversed the flow

 

Two days later, in the rain. When the river current and outgoing tidal current combine, this stretch of the river is impassable by boat.



Water swirling over the submerged rocks and ledge at the reversing rapids. The whirlpools constantly formed and re-formed as the current bounced off the walls of the narrow passage.

On a sunny Saturday, we drove back north to Hopewell Rocks near the top of the Bay of Fundy. These interesting pillars and arches have been carved by the rising and falling of the tides, which can vary up to 43 feet between low and high water. In the 3 hours before and after low tide, it's possible to walk on the floor of the bay.


We climbed down more than 100 steps to reach the "beach"



The mud around the rocks was very gooey and sticky - we kept to the firmer ground. At high tide, the water comes about half way up the biggest rock - the passage between the pillars is completely under water. We were fascinated by the shapes worn by the constant tides - on the left we see an old woman's profile (with a big pointy nose!) - and if you use your imagination the rock on the right looks a bit like a standing bear.

Another section of the coastline, bare at low tide

 

South of the rocks, miles of mud flats are exposed, with muddy streams cutting through the muck.

View of the rocks from the cliff above

So ends our 7-week tour of the Canadian Maritimes and Newfoundland. We'll need to return at some point - while we saw and did a lot, there's a lot more to these provinces than we had time to explore!