The rural upper bay of Fundy region comprises salt marshes and dykelands, ancient cliffs, fossilized sand dunes, rolling forested hills and the longest stretch of wilderness coastline on the eastern seaboard. It’s an ecological zone, not a jurisdictional one, running from the town of Hillsborough in the east to St. Martins in the west and Sussex to the north. It’s also home to 15,700 people, one national park, three provincial parks, a UNESCO biosphere reserve and a UNESCO global geopark. 

The parkway, completed in 2020, now links communities along the coast that were previously separated by wilderness. Before the parkway and its connector roads were built, residents and tourists in the town of Alma, for example, would have to drive inland to the provincial highway to travel to St. Martins. This disjointed system of roads left communities feeling disconnected from one another, with top-down tourism marketing and development plans over the past few decades compounding this sense of isolation. Those same communities were vying for attention from New Brunswick’s larger urban centres. “Saint John always claimed St. Martins,” explains Fardy, “and Moncton had Fundy National Park.”

The linking of the region’s communities with the opening of the Fundy Trail Parkway has provided the perfect opportunity to bridge differences and build better tourism.

Even as the parkway made travel in the region more seamless, the tourism sector quickly realized it was not quite ready for the increase in visitors the parkway was built to generate. Indeed, the town of Alma, where Fardy lives, was so overcapacity in the summer of 2023 that the municipality issued a boil-water order. This wasn’t because of a water quality issue but because the local reservoir, built to serve a winter population of 280, was so taxed it was pulling up sediment. The municipal government asked businesses to limit their water use and close publicly accessible washrooms.

As well, the shortage of affordable housing across the region affects locals and seasonal tourism workers who need places to stay during the busy summer season. And residents are deeply concerned about littering and the impact of increased use on local trail systems.

Then there are the cruises, which are set up to bring busloads of tourists straight from the pier in Saint John to the wharf in St. Martins and then back again in a few hours. The crowds come, but they don’t generate much revenue for the community. “It’s like, we’ll get you to the St. Martins sea caves and throw some chowder in you,” says Thorne. “The expectation has been that the local community should just step up and deal with it even though they didn’t ask for it.” 

“Folks were getting frustrated seeing investment take place in the area and not seeing work progress in ways where we could see the benefit,” says Fardy. “We always had these conversations on the backs of paper napkins. When COVID hit, we suddenly had a bit more time to think through a different approach to community well-being.”  

It was a crisp late fall day, the calm before the storm. Fall colours were over, but it would be a month yet before skiers and snowboarders descended on the Poley Mountain ski resort just outside Sussex to enjoy the powder on the 30 trails that snake down the side of the mountain. Tourism operators, local government officials and Rural Upper Bay of Fundy residents took advantage of the between-seasons lull to gather late last November at the resort for the first Fundy Connects Summit. The goal was to consult with communities in a way that had never been done before, to hear both their concerns and their hopes for the future. One of the highlights was Dor Assia, project manager- community economies pilot, at Shorefast, a charity that runs Newfoundland’s famous Fogo Island Inn and administers everything from arts programming to a sustainable fishing operation on the island. Shorefast now guides other communities looking to “unleash the power of place.”