A couple of weeks ago my mom and I took one of our annual roadtrips. We decided to go someplace new to both of us: New Brunswick! And as I had to restate many times to New Yorker friends and colleagues: that’s Canada, not Jersey.
The Bay of Fundy is a very interesting place. As anyone who did Geography Bee in middle school might be able to tell you, the Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world (though people who live near Ungava Bay will dispute that).
In St. John there is a place called Reversing Falls, which is obviously a misnomer, but we did visit it twice and see rapids in two different directions, once when the river was rushing into the bay and once when the tide was rushing in stronger than the river rushes out!
The Hopewell Rocks are extremely cool formations in the Bay of Fundy caused by the tidal erosion, so of course we went at low tide. Check them out!
We were there just at the beginning of the window of time during which it’s possible to walk on the ocean floor among the rocks. I was curious what kinds of creatures might be able to live in this most extreme intertidal zone. My answer: snails!
The photos of these snails are a little wonky because they were well above my head! Many of them were also out and about rather than clamped onto the rocks, which I found curious. Apart from these snails and barnacles, there was a lot of kelp. The sea floor being exposed as the tide continued to go out was extremely muddy, so it didn’t look hopeful for seeing any other lifeforms. Still, what a cool place!
I tried to use the word EXTREME a lot in this post, if you hadn’t noticed.
Also, when you drive by a geodesic blueberry in middle-of-nowhere Maine, stopping for pie is recommended.
The Shell and Mantle 
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