Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park

Interesting facts

According to Mi'kmaq legend, the rocks are people who were held captive by giant whales and were turned to stone as they tried to flee ashore.

The name Flowerpot Rocks is often credited to Ripley's Believe It or Not, which featured the stacks as the world's largest flowerpots.

The rocks are red-brown conglomerate, sandstone and mudstone laid down in the Carboniferous period, around 300 million years ago.

After the last ice sheet retreated about 10,000 years ago, water seeping through cracks in the cliffs began splitting off the stacks that the tides now shape.

The bases erode faster than the tops, because seawater attacks them twice a day while the crowns are only exposed to rain and frost.

In March 2016 the head of the formation known as Elephant Rock collapsed, sending an estimated 100 to 200 tonnes of stone onto the beach.

In each half-day tidal cycle about 100 billion tonnes of seawater flow in and out of the Bay of Fundy, roughly twice the combined flow of all the world's rivers.

The hamlet of Hopewell Cape, whose economy once rested on lumbering, served as the administrative centre of Albert County until the 1960s.

Each summer the mudflats below the rocks become a stopover for huge flocks of migrating sandpipers that fatten up before flying south.

Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park was established in 1958 and covers about 120 hectares of shore and woodland.

Why it is worth it

The Bay of Fundy has the largest tidal range on Earth, and at Hopewell Cape that means the water level can rise and fall by as much as 16 metres — roughly five storeys — between low and high tide, twice a day, every day. Nowhere else does that force carve quite the same shapes into the coastline.

The result is the Flowerpot Rocks: sea stacks of soft sandstone and conglomerate, standing 12 to 21 metres tall, undercut at the base by that relentless tidal erosion while trees keep growing improbably out of the flat tops, giving each formation the look of a plant crammed into a clay pot. The undercutting never stops, which means the rocks aren't a fixed exhibit — several have collapsed or changed shape over past decades, and the ones standing now are on the same slow schedule.

The part that actually changes how you experience the place is the tide itself: walk the exposed ocean floor among the rock bases at low tide, and six hours later the same spot sits under water deep enough to kayak through. It's the same three-hour window before and after low tide, every day the park is open, and it's the only reason to plan a visit around the clock rather than the calendar.

Good to know

The park is open late May to mid-October only; check the day's tide schedule before arriving, since the ocean-floor walk is only possible for a roughly six-hour window each day.

Best time to visit

Around low tide for the beach walk, or plan to stay across both low and high tide to see the transformation firsthand.

Getting there

30 km from Dieppe. Greater Moncton Roméo LeBlanc International Airport (YQM) is about 33 km away.

From the encyclopaedia

The Hopewell Rocks, also called the Flowerpot Rocks or simply the Rocks, are rock formations known as sea stacks caused by tidal erosion in the Hopewell Rocks Ocean Tidal Exploration Site at the Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park in New Brunswick, Canada. They stand 12–21 metres (40–70 ft) tall.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0