As a matter of fact, there are only two relatively small areas in all of Canada that have such a pattern: the waters between Prince Edward Island and NB, and around the Magdaleine Islands to the northeast of PEI (see Dohler’s chart). Almost the entire New Brunswick Gulf coast has a diurnal or mainly diurnal tidal pattern, that means, there is only one high and one low tide per day, a rare phenomenon. Dohler’s charts “Tides in Canadian Waters” in the Sailing Directions, Nova Scotia (Atlantic Coast) and Bay of Fundy. Lawrence left me truly baffled and were “totally unpredictable and weird”, like nothing I had ever experienced along our Atlantic Coast or even in European waters. And it worked fine for me all my life and also last year when I ventured into Fundy Bay to St. Technically this is called a semi-diurnal pattern. I count on two high and two low tides during each 24-hour cycle.

But the most stunning difference is the tidal pattern itself.īeing a Mainer, I am used to the tide flooding and then ebbing for about 6 hours each, i.e. Lawrence coastline rise and fall not more than 8 feet (often only 4-5 feet along this New Brunswick shore). While the tide gushes into Fundy Bay at a speed of up to 5 knots, creating the biggest tides in the world of up to 55 feet, the tides on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 330 miles from Dalhousie at the mouth of the Restigouche River and the border with Quebec, to Port Elgin at the border with Nova Scotia.

There is the steep, jagged rocky shoreline from Quoddy Head, ME down Fundy Bay into Cumberland Bay to the Tantramar River near Sackville, New Brunswick, stretching for about 190 miles.Īnd then there is the much gentler, mostly sandy shoreline along the Gulf of St. New Brunswick, one of Canada’s maritime provinces to the northeast of Maine, has two distinctly different coastlines with equally different tidal patterns. LAWRENCE SHOREģ30 miles (530 km) solo by sea-canoe August 2001

On Celtic Tides by Chris Duff