Waterfalls, 40-Foot Tides, and the BioBus

Tuesday. May 28, 2013
Sunday morning, May 26^th, we left St John to head for Fundy National Park. The rain stopped for the most part and we actually saw a few patches of blue before the overcast moved in again. We fueled up for the first time at a Canadian station that sells by the liter, so at $1.28, the price looked really cheap! Actually, it came to $4.87 a gallon. Not too bad. We paid that in California. On the way to Canada Route 1 we came across a road partially washed out by the rains. Huge puddle and potholes in the one lane the traffic was being funneled into.

As we drove east toward the park the sun broke through once or twice, but we still had a few showers and gray skies. The system still hadn't cleared out. We saw farms and hills and beautiful shades of yellow green foliage contrasted against the dark green of the evergreens, as the countryside here is waking up to Spring.
Leaving Route 1, which headed away from the coast after St John, we exited and took the road due south into the Fundy National Park and toward the coast. The rain started again and we were on potholed roads. Arriving at Chignecto North Campground, the only one open this early, we lucked into the shoulder season rate of $25 for water and electric. We could have full hook-ups for a few dollars more. We were assigned a site and went back and exchanged it for one closer to the wifi antenna, but, it has been inconsistent. It went away this morning and now that we want to post this, we can't. But, we are camped in a quiet grove of birch and fir trees. Across from us is parked the Bio Bus. Greg had an encounter with its occupants, so I'll let him add an addendum. We used the rest of the rainy, cold day to sit and relax.

Yesterday, Monday, May 27th was STILL cloudy and overcast. There was a chance of showers, but we thought we could get in a hike anyway. Our first stop as we drove out of the Caledonia Highlands and to the coast was the overlook that brought us a view across the Bay of Fundy to Nova Scotia. The Park is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, so the Canadian and the United Nations flags were flying there. We drove to the visitor's center and got some good advice on which trails to hike. As we came out the rain started and the wind picked up, so we decided to go to Alma for an early lunch and then try to hike.

View of Bay of Fundy and Nova Scotia

 Alma is a small town down the hill, on the edge of the park and directly on the Bay. There is a fishing harbor, a few motels, and several restaurants and shops. Only a few were open this early in the season. We checked out the touristy motel and restaurant, with the touristy prices, and decided to first go to the local convenience store and government liquor store. Greg settled on some local beer from Moncton, north of here, Pump House Fire Chiefs Red Ale. The young woman clerking commented that alcohol in Canada is much more expensive than in the US. I said that I guessed that because of that you have to drink less, and she said, “No, they just work more to pay for it!”. We asked her advice for a good place to eat, and after convincing her that we didn't want the touristy place, but where the locals like to go, she sent us down the block to the Harborview Market, because they have the best seafood chowder.

Alma Harbor, High Tide

Milk with Greg's middle name

Greg had a great bowl of the chowder and I had beef stew. (I'm really hating having a seafood allergy about now!) After lunch the rain stopped so we drove back into the park to the covered bridge over the Point Wolfe River and parked for the Shiphaven Trail. It was still overcast and windy, so we bundled up, slickers, gloves, hats and all. There was originally a dam, lumber mill, and shipbuilding at Point Wolfe. The tide was halfway in, so we stayed off the beach and hiked the trail through the woods. At the adjoining Point Wolf Beach trailhead, we dropped down to the beach, but the water was too high to walk on the gravel bars, so off we went again. We took the Coppermine Trail out to the headland and along the cliffside and back down the Shiphaven Trail to the parking lot. The path around the headland was often steep and wet from the rain. We had to ford several streams, but had small bridges over a few waterfalls. It took us several hours and we had a good workout, and beautiful rainforest to hike through. We had the trails all to ourselves.

Modern Covered Bridge - Bigger than the old ones!

Point Wolfe River at high tide

Red Spruce forest

Point Wolfe River at half tide

Back at the campground we saw an unusual hawk which we haven't been able to identify and a Snowshoe Hare sporting a brown coat for the summer. We had a quiet evening and hoped for blue skies for Tuesday.
This morning the clouds cleared out FINALLY! We've been in mostly rain for more than two weeks. Eight days straight of rain since the day before we left Acadia National Park. Today was beautiful! Tonight the Canadian Maritimes are having widespread frost warnings. The newscasters said they can't remember when that happened last, this close to June. We decided it's because we're here! We keep bringing the cold with us everywhere! Oh, by the way, we have two TV stations here in the boonies, after not getting any in the middle of the city of St John! Haven't figured this one out!

This morning we wanted to get out earlier so that we could go back to Point Wolfe Beach and walk the Point Wolfe River floor at low tide. Before we could leave, Greg had to troubleshoot an electrical problem. We found out later, that our rig was fine. We weren't getting full voltage into the rig, so our surge protector shut down all power to the rig. There was a regional brownout in New Brunswick that caused the problem. Okay, we just had to wait it out.

We drove back to Point Wolfe and walked back down the cliff and then out onto the riveri9 bottom and out to the Bay. At that point the tide was starting to come back in again. The tide here is 40'! We watched it creep in from the Bay and push against the waters of the river flowing out. I stopped to take photos looking back up the creek and turned around. In that short time, the water sneaked up behind me and I had to move quickly to keep my boots dry. We walked back up the river bottom and marveled at the high tide line on the cliffs, and the barnacles, snails and seaweed that live out of the water for hours twice every twenty-four hours.

View of Fundy Sunshine!

Park Visitor's Center

Point Wolfe River at LOW tide, Looking out at the Bay of Fundy

Looking Upstream

Barnacles and snails waiting for high tide

Seaweed sitting high and dry

Small sea cave in phyllite bedrock cliff

Rare and Beautiful Beach Breast of New Brunswick!

We left the river floor and hiked back up the cliff. Then we drove to Herring Cove and checked out the view across the Bay while we ate lunch. Next, we wanted to see one of the biggest waterfalls in the park. We drove to Dickson Falls and hiked into the gorge to a gorgeous falls! The park had constructed a boardwalk and bridges along and over the falls. While we were enjoying the falls a bat flew near us and landed on the boardwalk a few feet from us. It seemed really groggy since it was sunny mid-day. After a while it flew over onto a rock face on the other side of the falls.

Dickson Falls Boardwalk

Tired bat resting on boardwalk

Fiddlehead ferns

On the way back we stopped at the visitors center to report the bat sighting. The park was anxious to know about specific wildlife sightings and bats were on the list. The naturalist will be notified. There is concern about white nose disease that's killing off huge populations of bats farther south.
We returned to the campsite to find out that the low voltage problems we had in the morning had been fixed, but we still aren't getting an internet connection. Tomorrow we are moving on to Blomidon Provincial Park in Nova Scotia on the other side of the Bay of Fundy. The visitor's center as we enter Nova Scotia should have wifi, so hopefully you are reading this post now, because we were able to get it online.


Bio Bus (by Greg)
When I was out disconnecting our power cord from the campground power, I heard clattering and frustrated noises from the campsite across the driveway. Agatha, the crew leader for the Bio Bus called over to ask if we were also out of electric power. I went over and explained that our surge protector had indicated an under-volt condition and cut off our power and that there was not a problem with their rig or their individual campsite. I asked about their research and where they were traveling.

Agatha leads a crew of three summer interns (maybe grad students?) that are based out of the University of Guelph in Ottawa, and they will spend the summer collecting, preparing and shipping samples of insects and other arthropods to Guelph for DNA analysis. They will sample from all the national parks in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland. Their special emphasis is to study biodiversity using DNA Barcoding to confirm the presence of known species and identify new species that are hard to differentiate from other similar appearing arthropods. The arthropods are critical since they form some the lowest levels of the food chain in the stream and other ecosystems in the Acadian and Boreal forests of Atlantic Canada.

The research sounded interesting and the idea of a big road trip for a summer internship sounded like a lot of fun. I think the biggest challenge is fitting two men and two women into the camper/laboratory and learning how to get along. Judging from what smelled like beer fumes (maybe it was sample preservatives?) coming out the door, they were managing pretty well. There is a pretty good website and blog at www.Biobus.ca.

BioBus