Bay in ‘big leagues’ for world’s best nature site

BY SARA KEDDY

Kings County Register

Bay of Fundy buff Terri McCulloch knows there are lots of “best-kept secret corners” along the shore, but “we could probably be doing a lot more tooting of our own horns.”

That shouldn’t be hard, and we’ll need lots of noise to move the Bay of Fundy up a new international list for the New7Wonders of Nature.

“A lot of the public doesn’t know all the great stuff about the bay, but something really neat is going on here we may be missing,” she says.

McCulloch manages the Bay of Fundy Tourism Partnership, based in Parrsboro as a joint association for New Brunswick and Nova Scotia industry stakeholders. The group worked for two months to get its “baby” on the New7Wonders list of nominees. They just recently heard they made it: the Bay of Fundy is one of a couple hundred nominees accepted.

The list is “live,” and McCulloch says the work to gather public support for the Bay of Fundy’s position starts now. The top 21 will be shortlisted by the end of 2008, and then the entire world can vote until the official natural wonders list is revealed in 2010.

“It’s kind of fun to participate, and it’s really a chance to draw attention to our area of the world,” she says. “It will be very competitive, but we’re keen for the challenge and there is a lot of support for us internationally.”

There are only seven Canadian nominees on the full list, including Gros Morne Park in Newfoundland and Niagara Falls.

“Be really patriotic and vote for us!” McCulloch says.

“With official designation comes plaques, fireworks and the whole world - I guess I should start visualizing this if we’re going to win!”

Fundy facts

If you’re looking for proof the Bay of Fundy is a natural world wonder, look no further:

• More water flows through the Minas passage in a day as flows out of all the rivers of the world in the same time

• At high tide, Nova Scotia actually sinks several centimetres from the weight of water

• Biological links to the Arctic, the Caribbean, South America and Europe through fish, bird and animal migrations

• More species of marine animals than anywhere else in Canada (possible North America)

• Geological discoveries that influence the entire science

• Summer feeding area for more than half the world population of the endangered North Atlantic right whale

• Feeding ground for 90 per cent of the world’s migrating semi-palmated sandpipers

• World’s best site for tidal power potential

• World’s largest titanium deposits on Minas mudflats

• UNESCO designations: 2007, Upper Bay of Fundy as a biosphere reserve; 2008, Joggins Fossil Cliffs as a World heritage Site





WEBLINKS

www.new7wonders.com

www.bayoffundytourism.com

bayoffundy.blogspot.com

www.bayoffundy.travel