Peggy's Cove

It’s become a huge tourist attraction, a place where tour buses come and hordes of people to see the lighthouse, the rocks and the ocean.  Seems odd that something so simple can become an industry.  Only about 60 people live there year round, some of them fisher folk, and one wonders what they think of all of us traipsing through their community.  The houses are mostly small (there weren’t many trees around to build with) and have steep roofs (to keep the snow from piling up in winter) and little of no overhang (to prevent strong winds from taking them off).  We look around and see some of the old, no longer functioning dories and lobster traps and think that perhaps they were left there for us, a photo opportunity.  Never mind the cynicism, the place is beautiful.

We arrived on a foggy Sunday just before noon and it wasn’t terribly busy yet.  We parked at the Visitor Information Centre and tried out the composting toilets next door.  The bathrooms are impressive – very clean and spacious.  The interpretive plaques outside the Information Centre tell about clashing continents (tectonic plates) more than 400 million years ago releasing magma from under the earth’s crust that caused the rocky outcrops.  Then glaciers arrived to carve and move large boulders lying around the area.  An ice ridge moved down from the Arctic about 20,000 years ago scouring rocks and carving away topsoil.

From the Centre we wandered down the road, looking at the memorial to fishermen carved in a large granite rock by William deGarthe.  The little art gallery was closed.  Along the road we passed a gift shop and take out place (tasty Cornish Pasties), then came to the small fishing harbour.

Finally we reached rocky Peggy’s Point and the light house.  I can see how a person could sit on the rocks for hours and watch the waves.  It’s hypnotic, soothing.  We clambered about, looked at the lighthouse and the waves and took pictures.  There are supposed to be fossils in the rocks, but we didn’t see any.

I’ve always loved water, the sea, rivers and lakes – large expanses of water.  I was born in Kiel, which is on the Kiel Canal and the Firth, leading into the Baltic Sea.  I guess things that you experience in your childhood stay with you.