The Rocks Provincial Park

The Rocks Provincial Park is a provincial park in Albert County, New Brunswick, where massive rock formations rise directly from the ocean floor along the Bay of Fundy shoreline. The formations reach heights of about 40 feet (12 meters) and create a wide natural display along the coast at Hopewell Cape.

The rock formations began to form over 300 million years ago when sediments from rivers of the Caledonia Mountains collected at the base of the mountains and hardened over time into rock. The provincial park was established in 1958 to protect this geological legacy and allow visitors to access it.

The Mi'kmaq refer to these formations through an old story in which whales turned people into stone pillars. This account remains part of local memory and gives the rock formations their own place in how people here understand the shore.

During low tide, visitors can walk on the ocean floor between the rocks and view the formations from below. At high tide, elevated viewing platforms along the cliffs provide a good overview of the entire coastline and the rock pillars from above.

The Bay of Fundy tides expose and cover the base of the rock pillars twice daily, with water levels changing by as much as 14 meters (46 feet). This regular rise and fall allows visitors to experience the same location from completely different perspectives within a few hours.