Qualla: Passamaquoddy Bay

Passamaquoddy Bay: Introduction

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit The Beacon, Public domain. In the winter of 1922, the ice on Passamaquoddy Bay grew thick enough for men to walk from Deer Island to St. Andrews -- a crossing that erased, briefly, the border between two nations and the water that enforces it. The bay rarely freezes, but it has always been a place where boundaries blur. Straddling Maine and New Brunswick at the mouth of the St. Croix River, Passamaquoddy Bay is an inlet of the Bay of Fundy whose islands, passages, and shifting tides have complicated diplomacy, encouraged smuggling, and defied clean cartography for more than four centuries. The Passamaquoddy people, whose name the bay carries, lived here long before any border existed. French colonists arrived in 1604, built forts on the islands, and were eventually expelled. English settlers followed in the 1760s. The boundary question has been debated ever since.

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Image: The Beacon | Public domain

Passamaquoddy Bay: A Geography That Defies Division

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Me, CC BY 4.0. Passamaquoddy Bay is enclosed by a tangle of islands, peninsulas, and narrow passages that make it look, from the air, like a puzzle missing a few pieces. The southernmost point is West Quoddy Head in Lubec, Maine. From there the bay stretches northeastward past Campobello Island...

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Image: Me | CC BY 4.0

Passamaquoddy Bay: Drawing Lines on Water

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Fundy Historian "Jay", CC BY 4.0. The international boundary through Passamaquoddy Bay has been disputed since the American Revolution. The Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812, included provisions for commissioners to divide the bay's islands between the United States and Great Britain, yet confusions pe...

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Image: Fundy Historian "Jay" | CC BY 4.0

Passamaquoddy Bay: The Smugglers' Bay

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Photographer unknown, Public domain. A border running through busy, island-studded waters practically invites smuggling, and Passamaquoddy Bay has obliged for centuries. After the American Revolution, an illicit trade flourished across the bay's many channels. The peak came in 1808 during Jefferson's Embargo, when s...

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Image: Photographer unknown | Public domain

Passamaquoddy Bay: Old Sow and the Fundy Tides

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cooljeanius, CC BY-SA 4.0. Passamaquoddy Bay sits at the entrance to the Bay of Fundy, home to the highest tides on Earth, and the water moving through its passages does not behave gently. Between Deer Island and Eastport, the collision of tidal currents creates the Old Sow whirlpool, the largest tidal whi...

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Image: Cooljeanius | CC BY-SA 4.0