File:The Maritime Provinces of Canada (MODIS 2021-06-28).jpg

English: The Maritime Provinces—New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island—sit in Canada’s northeast and span roughly one percent of the area of the entire country. Surrounded by the sea and filled with forest, traditional industries such as forestry and fishing remain a part of the national culture. Urbanization and industrialization have brought about major shifts in the economy, as has tourism. When combined with Newfoundland, the Maritimes accounted for about 6 percent of Canada’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2016.

Despite the drive to modernize, much of the Maritimes remain nearly natural and some areas are critical to survival of several populations of endangered or threatened species. For example, about 84 percent of New Brunswick remains covered in forest. And the northern Bay of Fundy is famous as the spot with the highest tides on Earth—rising and falling more than 52 feet (16 meters) during the springtime. According to the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network, these huge tidal swings expose over 80,000 hectares of invertebrate-rich mudflats when they retreat, creating a buffet-style feast for both fish and migratory shorebirds. At least 70 percent of the eastern population of Semipalmated Sandpipers stop by here during migration to fuel up for their long flight from eastern Canada to northern South America, and they are joined by about 75,000 Red phalaropes and Red-necked phalaropes, and by massive numbers of Purple Sandpipers—all species with declining numbers. The mouth of the Bay of Fundy is also a critical foraging and rearing area for the endangered Right Whale.

On June 24, 2021, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired a true-color image of the Maritime Provinces of Canada. New Brunswick sits in the northeast, Prince Edward Island in the northeast, and Nova Scotia stretches across the southern section of the image. The large areas of gray pixels on the southern shore of Nova Scotia mark the city of Halifax. The Bay of Fundy separates Nova Scotia from New Brunswick.