April 2020 | SMITHSONIAN 45

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1970-2020

photographs by GRETA RYBUS

A bold approach to

generating clean electricity

faces the ultimate test—the

greatest tide on earth

t’s a glorious autumn morning on Brier Island,

Nova Scotia, with birdsong in the air and the sun

glinting off the rips of Grand Passage. Weathered

clapboard and shingled houses line the island’s two

principal streets, and chubby workboats—built

for lobstering, mostly—jam the protected harbor, where

wharves loom more than 20 feet above low tide.

Grand Passage appears almost empty on this day, except

I

by ELIZABETH ROYTE

Surge

Engine