Friday, August 03, 2012

Waiting for the bore - Maccan


Considering I have been coming to this part of Canada every summer for nearly 40 years it's a surprise that I have never before done what I did today. I went to see the Bay of Fundy tidal bore.  Fundy is famous for the world's highest tides, and at many locations the rush of the incoming tide is so strong that it pushes a wall of water upriver against the river's normal flow. As the Wikipedia article says:
Most rivers draining into the upper Bay of Fundy between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have tidal bores...The bore is fastest and highest on some of the smaller rivers that connect to the bay including the River Hebert and Maccan River on the Cumberland Basin, the St. Croix, Herbert and Kennetcook Rivers in the Minas Basin, and the Salmon River in Truro.
The other day at the Tidnish Art Gallery I picked up a few tourist brochures, and one of them listed the the times of the tidal bores at the Maccan Tidal Wetland Park. I knew that park, having been there to go birding one time a couple years ago, and knew it wasn't too far a ride to get to. Today was supposed to be a "high" bore day at roughly 12:21 PM, though the brochure warned the bore can actually arrive some 20 minutes before or after the posted time.  I had some shopping to do in Amherst, so it seemed a good day to combine both.

After my shopping I headed towards Maccan, not sure how long it would take me to get there, and I actually arrived at 11:15 AM! Hmm, so at best I had at least 45 minutes to wait, and at worst I had a good hour and 20 minutes or so. The day was fine at least, but how to pass my time until the bore arrived?

I then remembered I had my plein air supplies still in the car from my trip to Tidnish a few days ago! It was warm out but there were roofed picnic benches there supplying some shade, which was quite comfortable when combined with the light breeze. Doing a painting would certainly pass the time, and my timing was just about right to complete one! So the above was the painting I did while waiting for the tidal bore to come upriver. As usual on 9x12 Art Spectrum.

As it got closer to the time a couple young heavily tattooed girls from Ottawa showed up with their German shepherd, and a 40ish couple from elsewhere in Ontario with kayaks on their car, and lastly a lovely gentleman of about 80 who lived nearby and said that he came to see the bore every single day, and showed us pictures he had taken of the bore at different times and seasons. He said that he was the one who prepared the Maccan tidal bore chart that we had all seen and which had brought us all there. And they were all interested is watching me paint my picture!

And sure enough, I had just managed to more or less complete the painting when the bore finally came in at about 12:30 PM.  It was certainly an interesting sight to see the steady onward rush of the water as it came upriver, surging past us. And here is a photo of the bore as it came around the bend and past our very excellent viewing location,  and as it came past a bald eagle soared overhead! All in all a very fine day.


1 comment:

Frankie Stockman said...

What a beautiful painting. I think that would have been very interesting to see that happen. :):)