Funday, Funday...So Good to Me

New Brunswick’s Bay of Fundy is one of the Marine Wonders of the World. The tide rises as much as 53 vertical feet twice each day. We followed it, unknowing, for miles, until we spied a turnout for a scenic overview and stopped.

Two aquamarine Adirondack chairs sit perched on a hill in the center of the parking lot, providing front row seats to a panoramic view of the Fundy, a long ocean bay that stretches between the provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia on Canada’s east coast. The Bay of Fundy is the world’s most dynamic tidal coastline, with more than 160 billion tons of seawater flowing in and out of it during each of the Bay's daily tide cycles. In 2007, the New Brunswick side of the upper Bay of Funday was designated as a World Biosphere Reserve. This designation helps celebrate and promote unique landscapes and ecosystems.

Another hidden treasure, something we would not have planned to visit, was Cape Enrage. After leaving the Bay of Fundy overlook, we continued on remarkable Route 114, following its gentle sweeps through lush green hillsides and towering pines, punctuated by the occasional house, farm or barn. The next scenic overview sign – people with binoculars – beckoned us to Cape Enrage, so we made a right and continued...for 6 kilometers (just under 4 miles). As we climbed higher and higher, twisting and turning up the summit, my expectations grew, but I wasn't prepared for the breathtaking views from towering cliffs we found at the top.

Cape Enrage is at the southern tip of Barn Marsh Island, half way along the coastline between the villages of Riverside-Albert and Alma. It sits across the river from Nova Scotia and juts halfway out into the Bay of Fundy. Cape Enrage was named for the turbulent waters that pass over the reef and continue southward at low tide; the rough seas can be seen for much farther on windy days as the current and wind are in opposition. During the shipping heyday, it was prone to shipwrecks and one of the most hazardous areas for mariners in the upper Bay of Fundy. In 1838, 33 local residents and sea captains signed a petition for a lighthouse on Cape Enrage. The original structure was built in 1840; the lighthouse that stands today in 1870.

You are free to explore the area, so we climbed the wide planked stairs to the lighthouse and then climbed down a steep metal staircase onto the beach area. At low tide, the "beach" is covered with rocks, shard of shale and fossils contained in the layers of sedimentary rock approximately 320 million years old. Like Route 114, as we gingerly maneuvered across the rocks, we were awed at how every angle provided a different, more stunning view of this natural wonder.

Click here to see more pictures.

Click here to read more about Cape Enrage.