Noughties Highlight #3: Taming the Mighty Shubenacadie

I am a naturalist at heart. I love being outdoors and I love being in awe of nature. I can never fully describe the sensation of guiding a 16ft Zodiac with up to 8 passengers powered by a 40hp Yamaha outboard engine on a river undergoing a transformation unparalleled on this planet. The Shubenacadie River is Nova Scotia's largest (72km in length), springing from Grand lake (which connects to Halifax Harbour through a series of lakes and rivers that once composed the ambitious but never completed Shubenacadie Canal) as fresh water before meeting it's tidal influx for about the last 30km where it's mouth opens onto the Cobequid Bay. The Cobequid Bay opens into the Minas Basin which connects onto the Bay of Fundy. The Cobequid Bay is home to the world's largest tidal rise (53.7ft), as the Bay of Fundy's perfectly synchronized tidal oscillation is funneled into the apex of the V shaped bay system that comprises the Minas and Cobequid Bays. As the area narrows, the water accelerates and the energy transmitted intensifies. All this force reaches the mouth of the Shubenacadie River with the town of Maitland as witness. The lazily outflow to sea comes to a dramatic halt as the course of the river is reversed instantaneously and is heralded by a tidal bore if all conditions are favorable. Nearer the new or full moons, I have witnessed a bore stretching from bank to bank achieving a height of 6-9ft and stretching backwards in a succession of back bores of similar height. However, that is just the first easy push, the water keeps pouring into the river and gets choked up as it starts to fill over sandbars and tries to push through narrower parts of the channel. This results in my favorite all time manifestation of the first Law of Thermodynamics: energy is neither created nor destroyed. The excess energy in the velocity of the water is transferred into amplitude in response to those choke points as the water slows. Literally right before you eyes, the water begins undulating and within seconds you are going over 2ft, 4ft, 6ft, 10ft of water that appears out of nowhere. The waves last as long as the choke point restricts the water flow and intensify as the water keeps streaming in from behind, throwing greater and greater amounts of energy into the waves amplitudes, so their height keeps increasing until the water finds its way through once the depth of the river has increased enough so the the floodplain becomes progressively wider and the water can flow through. After the water can flow easily through, the waves disappear and the river calmly fills up over the course of 3 and 1/2 hours, raising its depth in places over 30ft. The beauty of the Rafting trip I conducted lies in a very simple principle: when the phenomenon described above abates near the mouth, you simply have to motor upstream to find it beginning to happen all over again in another spot that has another choke point. The places you find this occurring are predictable enough, however the timing and the tidal strength producing a great effect are entirely subject to change on any given day. One becomes instinctive in reading the River, reading how her sandbanks have shifted, reading how a series of tides are building off one another. The greatest joys I've found driving my boat were when I trusted my instincts, broke off from the pack of up to 30 other Zodiacs (I know it sounds like a lot, but trust me this River gets wide in a hurry) and have found amazing waves that no one else even knew where happening. And then going back for more in the following days of course. Sending that Zodiac through the eye of the needle and forcing it through 12ft of breaking water is one of my fondest memories. The days of finding sets of 16ft,18ft rollers and crashers left me with an adrenaline rush I have never experienced. Finding the right balance to navigate such monstrosities took me a few summers to achieve but once I had the right balance, taking people into the fury of that River with a delicacy to match the courage of taking on such power in such a small boat I think I left a lot of pain out there to be swept away. I think in a lot of ways I found my peace out there, over and over again as each summer I worked brought its own fresh scars in need of some healing. Oh, Shubie, I will never forget the lessons you taught me. Change is a daily necessity, growing, healing, dealing with the unpredictable by living in the moment, I know your silt stained eddies will forever twirl in my heart.