Listening to the Bay of Fundy

I dreamt I returned from the Bay of Fundy with a pair of loudspeakers – one outlined in orange and the other outlined in blue. The orange would play the sound of the Bay of Fundy, while the blue one was normal. This way, you could listen to music as it is heard at the Bay; or, if you so chose, just the sound of the Bay or just the music. In the dream, I regretted not buying two pair so that I could choose the sound of the Bay in stereo.

I did visit the Bay of Fundy this month, my first time there. And I did hear a remarkable sound. I tried to record it on my iPhone, though I’m not sure I captured it fully:

What I was hearing as I made that recording was a low frequency hum. I thought it might be machinery, maybe from a distant plane or ship, but the hum didn’t change or move or fade.

We were in a shoreline park administered by the Province of New Brunswick, and there was an information booth nearby. I asked the two employees there if they heard the hum. They weren’t sure what I meant, but when I played it for them on my iPhone they immediately recognized it. “Yes, I hear that all the time,” said one, who believed it was made by stones moving in the tide. The other said she doesn’t have keen hearing, but she knew the sound because “I feel it when I’m by the shore, it’s a vibration.” She gestured to her shoes – she was wearing those thin-soled sneakers that some runners use to simulate bare feet. “I like to feel the earth,” she said. Both agreed it was particularly audible at the beach where I had heard it, but said they knew it from other points around the Bay as well.

Walking at low tide along the Bay of Fundy, photo by Naomi

Later I googled furiously but came up with little about sounds at the Bay of Fundy, apart from underwater noise pollution caused by shipping as it is everywhere in the oceans. However, there is a tremendous amount of information about wave formation in the water there and the language is rich with suggestion for sound, if not precisely explanation. The famously high tides of Fundy – the highest in the world, up to a 53-foot difference along the shore every 6 hours - are caused by “resonance,” “oscillation,” “standing waves,” and “amplification”… all language familiar to those of us who work with or care about sound. Yet none of it is used to describe the sounds of the Bay as heard by humans; they are applied to the force and patterns of waves in the water, rather than the air.

As best I understand, the length and depth of the Bay of Fundy has a tidal resonance – also called seiche – of roughly twelve hours, the same length as the lunar tide. This coincidence amplifies the oscillation of water in the Bay, creating reflections and standing waves not unlike those we know from sound reinforcement in a room. Anyone who has suffered through a live show with a particularly loud hot spot somewhere in the bass frequencies should know what I mean. That feeling when everything in the room buzzes – sometimes including your head - every time the bass hits a particular note? The Bay of Fundy is like a giant room and the water in it is generating waves of tremendous power that resonate many times beyond the norm of other tidal areas.

Did I hear some aspect of that resonance, standing there on the shore during the incoming tide? Nothing I can find in scientific literature confirms that I did.

On a ferry across the mouth of the Bay, in the Gulf of Maine, I saw porpoises swimming and the spout of a whale. Surely these animals know the sounds of Fundy better than any human ever could – it is their element, not ours. It’s a tragedy that we seem to contribute nothing but noise to that environment, like the noxious vibrations generated by the ferry I was riding. Still we can, if we try, appreciate its sounds as best we can perceive them – whether through our ears or feet or instruments constructed for purpose. Like speakers outlined in orange.

Listening to: California Sigh, by Lee Underwood

Cooking: butter tarts and instant coffee