#3: [30-Jul-17]

#2: [25-Jun-03]

04-Jan-2002 -- After visiting some confluences in Victoria and New South Wales with my cousin Dave Thompson in Australia we thought we would try to visit one in Jenn's home province of New Brunswick on our trip there for christmas (#1).

Unlike our trips with Dave which were planned well in advance, and conducted using a map, compass and gps, we decided to borrow jenn's dad's gps, which we worked out how to use in the car on the way to Deer Island. We asked Jenn's uncle Stan if he had a map. He thought he did, but he couldn't find it. Stan did mention that there was a restaurant called the 45th parallel on the island, so we figured that the confluence would be somewhere near the restaurant. Apparently this restaurant sells great fish and chips.

On a sunny winter morning we drove to Deer Island from Hampton, near Saint John. Luckily the ferry was running every half hour so we got across to the island without any problem. There is a sealed road that circumnavigates the island and we followed this toward the restaurant, which we found to be actually located at 44 degrees 57 minutes north (#2). Unfortunately the restaurant was closed.

We then looked for a cross island road and found and tried a few of these, but nearly got bogged in the snow and mud. We had some success and followed a road to within 1.17km of the confluence. This is where we encountered the north harbour on Deer Island. This harbour cuts across the island in an east-west dirction on the western side of the island. The confluence is located to the north of this harbour.

We drove back around the island , this time approaching the confluence from the north, and located a track at 880m from the confluence. We then started to walk through fir and pine forest and came to the coast where an abandoned shack was found by the beach. We followed the coast and then at a cliff turned inland though thick fir which was much more difficult to cross than thick eucalypt forest we had encountered on our Australian confluence trip (#3).

Not having a compass proved to be a problem at this stage, however after some time we began to realise that the confluence point was located about 370m to the north-west off shore (#4).

We took some photos in the -10C weather looking across to Maine (#5). There was significant wind chill (#6) so we headed back to the car a little disappointed but still glad we had come out to Deer Island.

Before we left the island I had the chance to walk on a frozen lake for the first time, which was pretty exciting for me (and interesting for Jenn to see how excited someone can get about walking on a frozen lake which is apparently pretty standard practice in Canada) (#7).

On arriving back in Hampton that night we received a call from Jenn's uncle Stan. He had found the map and was calling to tell us that the point we were looking for was probably about 400m off shore!

In the Bay of Fundy, about 350 m from Deer Island. The borderline with the U.S. is running about 3.6 km WSW of the Confluence.