Joggins Fossil Cliffs & Centre — Attraction in Joggins

Overpriced, underwhelming and a massive waste of time. I'm a big science nerd and it broke my heart just how pathetic this place was that I was so excited to visit on our vacation. You don't need to take my word for it though, look through the pictures people have uploaded. You'll notice there's not a single picture of a fossil in a cliff and almost none of the fossils inside. Anyway, my review.

There's two distinct experiences at Joggins. The museum and the cliff walk. Both very different, both equally disappointing.

The museum features maybe a few dozen small fossils of mostly plants. The majority of the more interesting ones are either casts of fossils not present or on loan from other places and not even from there. The museum side of the building is mostly a single large open room and takes about 50% of the building, the other 50% being devoted to a very large overflowing gift shop and kitchen/cafeteria area. There's fancy glass windows on the floor looking into rock terrariums, perhaps to draw your attention from all the empty spaces along the walls where fossils should be. It is abundantly clear they spent the majority of their time and money on the building itself and selling you things and not curating the exhibits whatsoever.

The beach tour is $10 a person, 30 minutes long (five minutes to get to the beach area and five minutes back so really a 20 minute tour) and focused largely on a haphazard stack of four fossilized tree stump sections piled onto each other on the beach and then the guide reads some geology facts from a flip book. Throw in a five minute speech about coal mining and you're done, thanks for your money.

The cliffs are impressive, you can clearly see the angled layers of strata from the different geological time periods, but they're completely devoid of visible fossils. The beach is littered everywhere with big pieces of cut rock covered in graph marking lines where they've harvested fossils from.

All in all, you're paying $15 dollars for yourself or $45 for a family of three like we did, to go see a place where fossils used to be and to look at some mostly unimpressive partial plant fossils from other places. It's utterly pathetic that this is what we've developed to showcase a Canadian UNESCO site. Do yourself a favour and just go and sit at a nice spot along the bay of Fundy and have a picnic, you'll get the same experience and save...

First time back since Covid, and still a delight. Far fewer visitors and large tours currently not held; you can still have a smaller, guided experience. I do recommend that for first time visitors as there is so much you miss out on from lack of knowledge; these cliffs and the area are fascinating from the historic standpoints of both centuries AND eons ago. The ocean floor is different from Burntcoat Head - still very red overall, but much more stones and less silt. More rocky yet very different from Hopewell Rocks ocean floor, too. Fascinating seepage out of the Cliffs that in several areas forms a respectable stream out to the receeded tide waters. There's also an interesting point quite near the stairs where a clearly visible vein of rock angles down the side of the cliff and can be seen to continue in a sliced line well along the ocean floor. Another place right by the stairs shows the undulated rock created by immense pressures during formation eons ago. The ocean floor here is largely rocky, and the surf sounds nearly unvaried; a constant white noise of impressive consistency. Those who cannot manage steps will still enjoy the sight from the top area. The museum is fascinating. Outdoors there is a lovely lawn with picnic tables, a play area for young explorers and a labyrinth for those wanting to walk and unable to climb (a...

Do you like rocks? Do you like really old animals and plant life? Do you like walking along the beach?

If the answer is yes to the above, then you’ll likely also enjoy Joggins. I was able to see numerous fossils in just a single hour! Honestly, I would have been perfectly content to have just gone here day after day during low tides.

Speaking of tides, these are an important factor in planning your trip here. The tide rises quickly, so you cannot just go down the stairs to explore around the cliffs whenever you please. However, on the Joggin’s website they link to the government’s tide website and I wonder if you can also maybe call and ask them the day before your visit, too, if you aren’t familiar with them? Once on site, they have a board that lists the tides and the safe times to be on the beach.

Oh, and they have a little museum there, with plenty of fossil examples, too. So if you can’t access the beach due to the stairs (which are not steep, luckily), then you can still some...