A Week In Nova Scotia - Part 4 - Hall's Harbor and The Bay of Fundy

We spent most of the week in the city of Halifax, but we did spend a couple of days driving around other parts of the Province.  One thing we really wanted to see was the Bay of Fundy, which is famous for having some of the largest differences between high and low tide in the world.  A great way to see this is to go someplace where you can see the vertical effect of the tides, which is best seen in a narrow inlet such as Hall's Harbor.  It's also a good place for a late morning lobster snack.

Hall's Harbor is reportedly named after Samuel Hall, an American privateer in the American Revolution who used the cove to raid settlements in the Annapolis Valley.  He was forced to flee and abandoned his ship in the harbor in 1779.  There is a legend that Hall left treasure buried somewhere here, and the area has attracted treasure hunters ever since.  Hall's Harbor was first settled in 1826, and the first wharf was built in 1836.

The Bay of Fundy tides officially measure up to 50' in height, and on average, there is a little over 6 hours between high and low tide.  I took this next picture of the harbor at 11:37am, just after we arrived.  Fairly low tide, with the fishing boats sitting on the bottom.

Here's a similar view just under two hours later.  The tide still had a long way to go.

We shared a small lobster, since we were just looking for a snack.  We knew it was fresh since we had to carry it, alive, from the tank in the store over to the cook shack, where they steamed it up for us.

An hour and a half after the shot above.

During one of our visits to the Old Triangle Alehouse in Halifax we spent some time talking with a commercial fisherman, who is presently running his 65-foot boat out of Digby, on the Bay of Fundy, harvesting scallops.  He was in Halifax having some work done on the boat, was originally a cod fisherman from Newfoundland, and he went on at length about what a great place that is.  We'll have to include Newfoundland on our next visit to the area.  Apparently Digby is the scallop capital of the world, and he suggested that we go there to try some fresh scallops.  So we did.  It's a long drive down the Annapolis Valley, a rich agricultural region in the center of the Province, but it was worth it.

It was a long drive back to Halifax so we didn't stay long in Digby, but the seared scallops were particularly good.

Click here to see more images from the Bay of Fundy.