Raccoon Beach, Campobello; June 8, 2012

Raccoon Beach, Campobello Island, New Brunswick, Canada; June 8, 2012

Raccoon Beach is part of Roosevelt Campobello International Park, an amazing joint effort between the US National Park Service and the Canadian government.

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The park takes up almost half of Campobello Island, which is only 8 miles long. The island is part of New Brunswick (Canada) and is a bit over two hours away from home. If you follow the border between Maine and New Brunswick in the map below, Campobello is the point where the border meets the ocean (well, really it's the Bay of Fundy.)

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On our first day, we decided to go for a bike ride, so we asked the ranger at the visitor center what was interesting. "Well," she said, "there's a dead whale on the beach. Only been there a couple of days." "Oh no," another ranger piped up, "it's been there a week or so. Might smell a bit." So off we went to Raccoon Beach to see the whale. Pretty much everyone we talked to all weekend had been to see it, so I gather the first few days of its decay must have been quite the social occasion.

See that oddly-colored lump near the center?

Dead whale. Yup, smelled a bit. But only downwind. I later learned (through the graces of Google) that it was a baby Northern Right Whale, killed by a ship strike.

The stones on this beach are the smooth, rounded kind we call 'cobbles' back home. When I try to picture the melting and mixing and uprising and tumbling processes that made these lines and speckles my brain starts to hurt. Geological time does that to me.

There were some real beauties here, but I wasn't sure of the park rules (in US National Parks it's against the law to take any natural things like rocks or shells and I hadn't thought to bring my light tent, either (doh!)) so I just took photos on site. That's why there's only garbage in the still life.

But then I have to admit that I find the trash almost as interesting as the stones. Shotgun shells, a puzzle piece, sea glass, rope, and the top of a soda can. A wide variety of recreational uses! And I've never found a jigsaw piece before. Or a dead whale. Altogether a memorable day of beachcombing.

In the still life: Pulpboard jigsaw puzzle piece, sea glass, aluminum soda can top, shotgun shell, fishing rope.