CONTRARY TO A RUMOR I'VE TRIED TO CIRCULATE, "Nova Scotia's Famous Tidal Bore" is not the old fellow who stands up at the end of a long meeting, when everyone's ready to go home, and starts to reminisce about the good old days. A tidal bore is a natural phenomenon, in which the flow of a river is reversed by an onrushing tide. Tidal bores are fairly rare, because they require high tides, a broad bay, and a narrow river.
Nova Scotia's Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world, and as you can see from the doctored image above (courtesy NASA via the Wikipedia), it has the other requirements as well. The arrival of the tide on the Shubenacadie River is such a big event that a new interpretive center has been built at the site of a former bridge, where tourists and others can stand on an outlook point and watch the tide come in. Several local businesses take thrill-seekers out to the bay in inflatable boats so that they can ride the tide. Quite a few of my Nova Scotian friends have taken this ride several times and insist that they enjoy it.
A few years ago I took a visiting friend from Chicago out on one of these river rides, deliberately choosing a day when we were expected to have exceptionally high tides. Until that day I'd considered myself an aficionado of the roller coaster, a fasten-your-seatbelts kind of girl, a lover of the bumpy ride. But the bore got the better of me. After having been slammed and bounced and drenched for what felt like hours, I felt like I'd spent the day inside the wrong part of a laundromat. I shoudn't speak for my friend, but let me just take this opportunity to say, I'm really, really sorry, Mary!
A few days ago, we joined our friends Bob and Kathy for a much tamer view of the tidal bore, from the outlook at the new interpretive center. I don't know whether the tides were lower that day or whether they just look lower when you're looking down on them from a height. Now I'm thinking maybe I should try it again ...
Then again, no.
At any rate, here's an album of photos from a gorgeous fall afternoon on the Bay of Fundy.
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| Tidal bore |
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