While hosting our planet's most spectacular tidal flows, the Bay of Fundy nurtures an astonishing diversity of creatures, from the whales, seals, and flounder that move with the tides to the anemones, nudibranchs, and lumpfish that remain at the bottom.

ll around Canada's Grand Manan Island, the tide is rising. Unlike tides in most places, however, this is not some gradual, barely perceptible event. Fueled by vigorous currents, enormous masses of water clash against each other and against the island's irregular topography, producing countercurrents and whirlpools, large and small. Driftwood caught in the maelstrom spins wildly out of control, while sailboats struggle to stay afloat. A few miles away, off Deer Island, the rising tide churns up Old Sow, the largest tidal whirlpool in the Western Hemisphere, if not the world.
        Grand Manan Island is situated near the mouth of the Bay of Fundy--home to our planet's greatest tidal flows. The 170-mile-long bay is set between the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Every 12 hours or so, an estimated 100 billion tons of seawater moves in and out of the area.
        The time it takes for the water to move from one end of the bay to the other

A sea raven scoots along the bottom of the Bay of Fundy.

is roughly equal to the time it takes for the tide to rise and fall. This curious resonance forces the water to reach extraordinary heights at the bay's innermost reaches (particularly Shepody Bay and Minas Basin), where the waterway narrows significantly. In that area, the incoming tide attains an average height of 42 feet and can exceed 50 feet when the moon is full. Nearby rivers are also affected, as the tidal waters pour upstream and cause rapids to reverse direction.
        For an observer, the effect is incredible. Walk along the shoreline at high tide and the ocean laps at your toes. Come back several hours later, and you won't be able to see the water, let alone touch it. The only evidence that it ever splashed along the shore lies in the vast tidal mud flats awaiting its return.

A fertile region

he bay is more than just a tidal curiosity, though. It is filled with an amazing variety of life-forms. The ebb and flow of the tide mix nutrients pulled in from the ocean with those already in the bay, fueling immense blooms of plankton--the foundation for all living creatures in the water.
        The result is a wonderfully fertile region. Schools of herring, mackerel, and flounder follow the tides in to feed and move back out with them six hours later. Additional visitors, especially at the southern end of the bay, include finback, humpback, minke, and pilot whales, as well as porpoises, seals, pollack, and dogfish (a small shark). The bay also attracts countless birds, such as semipalmated sandpipers and plovers, that come to feed on the mud flats when the tide is out.
        Near the southern end, wherever rocky areas are covered by water even at low tide, massive communities of invertebrates have taken hold at the bottom, forming colorful outposts of life in the vast landscape of

The Bay of Fundy hosts a variety of life, including the sea urchin.

mud. Red, pink, and orange sea anemones--flowerlike creatures that are actually animals--cover the rocks. Bunches of stalked tunicates sway in the water like so many tulips. Yellow sponges, some more than five feet across, spread out over the bottom, interspersed with aptly named sea peaches. Basket stars extend their highly branched arms when feeding at night. All filter food from the water. Mixed in among them are an assortment of lobsters, crabs, starfish, urchins, snails, shrimp, and nudibranchs.
        Hiding in the rocks with them, lying in wait, are the bottom-dwelling fish of Fundy--a collection of characters seemingly straight out of Dr. Seuss. Shorthorn sculpin and sea raven, camouflaged with lumps, bumps, and spikes, sit atop ledges. Oversized goosefish, their mouths taking up more than half their bodies--dead ringers for Jabba the Hutt--hide in the seaweed.
        Sea robins, their emerald eyes aglow as they scoot along the seafloor, poke feelers into the sand in search of buried shellfish. Ocean pout slither from rock to rock, seaweed patch to seaweed patch, their blubbery lips ready to wrap around any unsuspecting crab. Lumpfish stand guard over nests of eggs, while torpedo rays lie poised to give potential predators a deadly jolt of electricity.
        All these creatures can be found scattered throughout the waters of the North Atlantic, but it is here in the Bay of Fundy that they seem the most profligate, colorful, and densely packed. All share the ability to thrive in one of the harshest environments in the world. Other life-forms move in and out of the bay with the currents; but the bottom dwellers--including visitors such as the lumpfish--go about their activities apparently undeterred by the massive tidal flows. For us, living under such extreme circumstances seems impossible. For them, it is routine.

On the Internet
Bay of Fundy
www.bayoffundy.com
Bay of Fundy Marine Resource Centre
www.bfmrc.ns.ca
New Brunswick's Bay of Fundy
www.tourismnbcanada.com/web/english/fundy/default.asp

Jerry Shine is a freelance writer based in Somerville, Massachusetts. He expresses his sincere thanks to Martin Kaye, manager of the Bay of Fundy Marine Resource Centre in Cornwallis Park, Nova Scotia, for his expert review of the manuscript.