When St. Martins was settled along the southern coast of New Brunswick in the Bay of Fundy the major industry quickly became shipbuilding, with forestry a major secondary industry. Though fishing was done from the first days of the settlement, since there was no economical means of transporting fish to market the fishing was carried out as a means of supplying the settlement with food.
It was not long before packing houses were established in the area and fin fish, such as herring, cod, mackerel, etc. were being shipped to nearby markets. Today the major fishery is lobster, with Rock Crab, Jonah Crab, herring, pollock and cod making up smaller fisheries. Certain shellfish make up a small portion of the annual catch, as well.
The Fundy fishery generates more than 200 million dollars annually, making it the most affluent fishery region in Atlantic Canada. As such, the commercial fishing stocks are monitored by Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans to ensure sustainability of this remarkable resource. The Atlantic Canada fisheries are divided into about 40 individual areas, named
Lobster Fishing Areas, or LFAs. St. Martins is in LFA #36, which stretches along part of the western shore of the Bay of Fundy. The lobster seasons in LFA 36 run from March 31 to June 29 and from the 2nd Tuesday in November to January 14. Crab seasons fall between the lobster seasons, as do fin fish seasons.
While fin fish are generally caught using large gill nets, lobster and crab are caught using rectangular wire cages, known as lobster pots. Though fishermen originally used a different style of pot for crabs, it was found that, with slight modification, lobster pots were as efficacious as the old crab pots, allowing fishermen to fish both species using a single set of pots. All boats are licensed, with about 95 licensed boats fishing in LFA 36, each allowed a maximum of about 300 pots. Of the licensed fleet, the vast majority sail from Alma and St. John, and this small fleet from St. Martins.
There are no processing plants in St. Martins so the catch must be delivered to the nearest processing plants in Alma, 110 kilometres to the northeast, or St. John, about 45 kilometres southwest. Fishermen will sell a small portion of their catch directly to the public and nearby restaurants at the dock.
Notice that the fleet is sitting on the bottom of the harbour, with nary a drop of water under it. This is normal, as the
Bay of Fundy experiences the highest tides in the world, up to 16 metres in certain areas. As a result, fishermen here must time their coming and going according to the tides.
The Phenomenal Bay of Fundy
The Bay of Fundy is one of the 7 wonders of North America. The highest tides on earth, the rarest whales in the world, semi-precious minerals and dinosaur fossils; all this convinced an international panel of experts in 2014 to choose the Bay of Fundy as one of the natural wonders of the world.
Tides are the periodic rise and fall of the sea caused by the gravitational pull of the moon and the sun on the Earth. Fundy’s tides are the highest in the world because of an unusual combination of factors: resonance and the shape of the bay.
The water in the Bay of Fundy has a natural resonance or rocking motion called seiche. You could compare this to the movement of water in a bathtub. Although the water in a bathtub sloshes from one end to the other and back again in a few seconds, it takes about 13 hours for the water in the bay to rock from the mouth of the bay to the head of the bay and back again. As the ocean tide rises and floods into the bay every 12 hours and 25 minutes, it reinforces the rocking motion.
To imagine this, picture an adult giving a gentle push to a child on a swing. Just a very small push is required to keep the swing moving. Likewise the seiche in the bay is sustained by the natural resonance of the ocean tides.
The bay’s shape and bottom topography are secondary factors contributing to Fundy’s high tides. The bay becomes narrower and shallower — from 130 m (426') to 40 m (131') — toward the upper bay, forcing the water higher up onto the shores.
From Bay of Fundy Touism