Bay of Fundy Nature Conservancy of Canada. Some sources believe the name "Fundy" is a corruption of the French word "Fendu", meaning "split", while others believe it comes from the Portuguese "funda", meaning "deep". The bay was also named Baie Française (French Bay) by Samuel de Champlain during a 1604 expedition to St. Croix Island. The Bay of Fundy has a high tidal range. Oceanographers attribute it to tidal resonance resulting from a coincidence of timing: the time it takes a large wave to go from the mouth of the bay to the inner shore and back is practically the same as the
Bay of Fundy Nova Scotia towns of Amherst, Parrsboro, Truro, Windsor, Wolfville, Annapolis Royal, and Digby are also on the bay. The Mi'kmaq, an Algonquian-speaking people, fished in the Bay of Fundy and lived in communities around the bay for centuries before the first Europeans arrived. The first European settlement was French, founded at Île-Saint-Croix, and then Port Royal, founded by Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Mons and Samuel de Champlain in 1605. The village was the first permanent European settlement north of St. Augustine, Florida, which was founded by Spanish explorers. (Two years later, the English made their first permanent settlement in Jamestown,