What a lovely, inspiring piece! I thought at first, "Well, they were staying near the ocean, so they were hearing the ocean." But then I realized you were talking about something else, something you couldn't quite put your finger on. It reminds me of another essay I read long ago about the sensation of experiencing an inexplicable primordial tidal force. By the literary scholar Robert Scholes. It's a very complicated piece, as I remember it -- it quotes Barthes and Derrida. A lot! (Scholes did teach at Brown, after all). But one beautiful section recalls sailing from Narraganset Bay to Nantucket, and on the way experiencing something inexplicable in the Sakonnet River. Spoiler alert: Scholes and his wife were experiencing the sensation of waves formed by ground swells. Unlike anything they had ever experienced in their sailing life -- certainly unlike any other kind of waves, not big or threatening waves, but waves they could feel more than see. "Waves are not matter," Scholes writes, "they are energy incarnate, moving through matter in the own shape. I once asked a physicist why so many things came in the shape of waves. He said, 'Because God likes waves.'" Anyway, the piece goes on, making all kinds of literary connections to waves and the force of the ocean -- James Joyce, John Ruskin, W.S. Merwin, W. Eugene Smith's famous photo "Tomoko in the Bath." But I think his explanation of ground swells could partially explain the physical sensation you experienced by the Bay of Fundy. It's from the essay "Reading: An Intertextual Activity" (such an inviting title!), collected in the book "Protocols of Reading" (Yale). Sorry to blather, but, as always, your pieces provoke thought -- and more writing!
I live in Bristol in the UK. The river Avon flows through the city, out along the spectacular Avon gorge before spilling into the Bristol Channel which is said to have the tidal second (or possibly third) largest tidal swing in the world - 46ft. For many years, at quiet times of the day and night, I have heard a low hum. At first I thought it must be the distant hum of the motorway, or maybe some large plant machinery out at Avonmouth docks. I thought it could be tinnitus yet when I block my ears the sound is blocked. When I can hear it, it is constant and just present in a very different way to mechanical noise. I looked on the Web and found numerous articles about the "Bristol hum", most saying it was a phenomenon first reported in the 1960s (or 70s,depending on which article you read) but the reports didn't describe the experience of the sound that I have. It isn't unpleasant. It's just "there". The "hum" is a not uncommon phenomenon globally it seems but in the UK it is by far the most associated with Bristol. I had never considered the movement of the tide but this piece on the sound of the Bay of Fundy leads me to join those dots. Perhaps this is why Bristol residents experience this more frequently than other UK locations. In a world of unrelenting change, war and environmental collapse, I take strange comfort in this thought. There is something profound about the idea of being able to hear the movement of the oceans as they are pulled this way and that by the motion of the moon. Thank you for enabling me to have this thought and experience the world around me in a new and beautiful way.
There was a recent article in the Atlantic about a seiche in a fjord in Greenland caused by a melting glacier that triggered a massive landslide. This one was outside human hearing range but detectable on instruments worldwide. It took quite a while for geologists to solve the puzzle.
Excellent reveries floating here!
What a lovely, inspiring piece! I thought at first, "Well, they were staying near the ocean, so they were hearing the ocean." But then I realized you were talking about something else, something you couldn't quite put your finger on. It reminds me of another essay I read long ago about the sensation of experiencing an inexplicable primordial tidal force. By the literary scholar Robert Scholes. It's a very complicated piece, as I remember it -- it quotes Barthes and Derrida. A lot! (Scholes did teach at Brown, after all). But one beautiful section recalls sailing from Narraganset Bay to Nantucket, and on the way experiencing something inexplicable in the Sakonnet River. Spoiler alert: Scholes and his wife were experiencing the sensation of waves formed by ground swells. Unlike anything they had ever experienced in their sailing life -- certainly unlike any other kind of waves, not big or threatening waves, but waves they could feel more than see. "Waves are not matter," Scholes writes, "they are energy incarnate, moving through matter in the own shape. I once asked a physicist why so many things came in the shape of waves. He said, 'Because God likes waves.'" Anyway, the piece goes on, making all kinds of literary connections to waves and the force of the ocean -- James Joyce, John Ruskin, W.S. Merwin, W. Eugene Smith's famous photo "Tomoko in the Bath." But I think his explanation of ground swells could partially explain the physical sensation you experienced by the Bay of Fundy. It's from the essay "Reading: An Intertextual Activity" (such an inviting title!), collected in the book "Protocols of Reading" (Yale). Sorry to blather, but, as always, your pieces provoke thought -- and more writing!
Thank you! Don’t know the reference and will be looking it up!
Lovely writing…
Also, I can't hear "Baby of Fundy" without hearing Joni Mithcell:
Coyote's in the coffee shop
He's staring a hole in his scrambled eggs
He picks up my scent on his fingers
While he's watching the waitresses' legs
He's too far from the Bay of Fundy
coincidentally i am on the bay of fundy right now, but on the nova scotia side…. thanks for your timely article..
I live in Bristol in the UK. The river Avon flows through the city, out along the spectacular Avon gorge before spilling into the Bristol Channel which is said to have the tidal second (or possibly third) largest tidal swing in the world - 46ft. For many years, at quiet times of the day and night, I have heard a low hum. At first I thought it must be the distant hum of the motorway, or maybe some large plant machinery out at Avonmouth docks. I thought it could be tinnitus yet when I block my ears the sound is blocked. When I can hear it, it is constant and just present in a very different way to mechanical noise. I looked on the Web and found numerous articles about the "Bristol hum", most saying it was a phenomenon first reported in the 1960s (or 70s,depending on which article you read) but the reports didn't describe the experience of the sound that I have. It isn't unpleasant. It's just "there". The "hum" is a not uncommon phenomenon globally it seems but in the UK it is by far the most associated with Bristol. I had never considered the movement of the tide but this piece on the sound of the Bay of Fundy leads me to join those dots. Perhaps this is why Bristol residents experience this more frequently than other UK locations. In a world of unrelenting change, war and environmental collapse, I take strange comfort in this thought. There is something profound about the idea of being able to hear the movement of the oceans as they are pulled this way and that by the motion of the moon. Thank you for enabling me to have this thought and experience the world around me in a new and beautiful way.
Fascinating, thank you! I have loved our visits to Bristol - next time I will be listening for the hum!
There was a recent article in the Atlantic about a seiche in a fjord in Greenland caused by a melting glacier that triggered a massive landslide. This one was outside human hearing range but detectable on instruments worldwide. It took quite a while for geologists to solve the puzzle.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/09/greenland-mystery-tremors/679986/
Ah I heard a report about that but hadn’t put the two together! Thank you