Why the Bay of Fundy’s tide grows so large
The bay’s shape helps amplify a tide that is already moving in from the Atlantic. As the water travels into a long, narrowing basin, it has less room to spread sideways. The incoming tide therefore pushes water farther up the bay, much as water rises when it is funneled into a narrower channel.
The shape is only part of the explanation. The bay also has a natural sloshing rhythm: water moves in and out of the basin over a cycle close to the timing of the Atlantic’s twice-daily tide. When those rhythms reinforce one another, the water’s rise and fall become unusually large. This is called resonance—a repeated push arriving at a rhythm a basin can amplify.
A shoreline that changes with the clock
That amplification reshapes the view over a single tidal cycle. At high tide, water covers broad stretches of shore; as it drains away, it exposes mudflats and channels that had been underwater. Boats left in shallow water can settle onto the mud, while routes across the exposed shore may be covered again by the returning tide.
For visitors, the practical detail is that the landscape is temporary. A viewpoint, beach, or channel can look dramatically different a few hours later, so exploring the shoreline means paying attention to the tide’s timing—not treating the waterline as fixed.
