Eric Allaby, The Sea Wins

Most maps depicting the Bay of Fundy lying between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick suggest a seemingly benign and interestingly shaped body of water north of the Gulf of Maine.The funnel-shaped area's chief claim to fame is the height of its tides, reportedly the highest in the world.More detailed charts of the area, however, tell the story of a much more dangerous bay, especially at its eastern end where islands, ridges, outcrops and isolated "sunkers" abound, and where the bottom can rise up from fathoms deep to inches in the length of a steamship or on a change of the tide.In addition, the huge tidal flows create cross-currents which can carry a vessel off a safe course, a danger exacerbated by frequent fogs and storm conditions.In early years, this was compounded by the absence of navigation aids, making for a dangerous passage.The port of Saint John, New Brunswick, on the north side of the bay has historically been one of Canada's major ports, ice-free and linked by rail to central Canada and the American mid-west, so sail and steamer traffic through the bay has been high.It is this area, and in particular the mouth of the Bay of Fundy between Yarmouth and the island of Grand Manan, where Eric Allaby sets the stage for a series of shipwreck accounts.The volume covers the stories of some forty wrecks covering the period from 1741 to 1976 but only four are before 1840.Marine archaeologists will shudder at Allaby's accounts of his early diving explorations, blowing up wrecks in order to recover brass and copper from the wreck sites.By the 1970s, however, he had taken training and was recognized as an underwater archaeologist, and for several years worked with the New Brunswick Museum on a project funded by the National Museums of Canada surveying wrecks in the Fundy region.It appears that he began much of his research for this volume in this period and has continued for decades.Allaby was one of a group of marine scholars and

Archaeology · Art · Bay · Environmental ethics · History · Island Studies and Pacific Affairs · Maritime and Coastal Archaeology · Maritime Security and History · Philosophy