World’s Most Photographed Lighthouse
Princess Diana was famously the world’s most photographed woman and our very own Peggys Cove boasts the world’s most photographed lighthouse. No less an authority than the Nova Scotia Lighthouse Preservation Society makes the claim on its website, though it hedges its bet with a “may be.”
On Canada Day, the place is hopping. Parking on the outskirts of the village, I fight past hordes of visitors and dodge lumbering buses just to get a peek at the celebrated Lady Peggy. A band blasts the Q104 classics next to a shop pulling tourists in one end and grinding them out the other. It’s not a promising start.
But then she emerges: 50 feet of serenity, untroubled by the half-naked man recumbent at her feet, the screaming baby and the visitors standing precariously on wet rocks. Her long, white body is crowned with red hair. I imagine if I were 52 feet tall, I would see her one eye blinking up at me in sublime innocence.
I find a boulder and start to count photographs, but the paparazzi overwhelm me. Dozens of cameras pop at once as an unending stream of suitors stop, snap and move on. At Lady Peggy’s toes, a man and a woman stand hand in hand. She is near tears. His eyes are hidden behind sunglasses. A man in a suit stands before them reciting familiar vows.
“Do you take Robert to be your husband?” justice of the peace Bill Hale asks. She does. “And do you take Paula-Marie to be your wife?” Of course he does.
They exchange rings and kiss, to the enchanted cheering of the gathered crowd.
The newlywedded Whitcombs are in Nova Scotia for one day. Robert sought the most beautiful spot he could find, and that spot was Peggys Cove. They travelled by cruise ship from Vermont just to have Lady Peggy at their wedding.
“It’s gorgeous,” Mrs. Whitcomb says, surveying the sea, “and what a place for him to bring me back every year.”
A flurry of photographers record the moment, which is not ruined when a fellow passenger congratulates the couple and hands them his business card. It announces that he is a divorce lawyer.
I decide I need something to compare Lady Peggy to. After some googling, I settle on the Sambro lighthouse. Built in 1758, its pedigree is as impressive as its more famous sister, and it’s just along the coast.
Google plots a course from my house to the lighthouse, but shrugs when it gets its toes wet. I check out the area and realize we have a problem: it’s on an island several kilometers off the coast. Skipper Dave bails me out.
Dave Grey was a fisherman from birth, until health problems caused him to give up the bait a couple of years ago. He missed the sea and so re-tooled his boat to host fishing, diving and island-visiting expeditions.
We putter out of the harbour on a bright morning, passing the shiny heads of a dozen swimming seals. A big one suns himself, recumbent on a rock, while two pups scamper into the water. We pass a small fishing boat surrounded by gulls.
“Get your camera ready,” Skipper Dave tells me. The boat is captained by an ancient, sea-swept man with a lengthy white beard. He’s busy gutting cod. Skipper Dave calls him “Old Moss Face.”
We dock next to an abandoned building whose concrete floor looks about ready to tumble into the sea. Waist-high grass waves and gulls shout. We stare at the lighthouse. Old Sam looks quite dashing in his red-striped sweater.
“Anyone who tells you it’s not as pretty as Peggys Cove is full of” a word not printable in a family newspaper, says Skipper Dave.
There are a grand total of zero tour buses wrapping around this lighthouse. In fact, when Skipper Dave hops back on the boat, the human population of the island drops to me. Green grass rolls over grey rock, surrounded by blue.
I find a stone and sit down to count photos. Sam had a century head start on Peggy, but I have to admit that photographically, he trails by an ocean. Feeling sad for him, I point my camera skyward. Sam stands a little taller. I take his picture. Quantity isn’t everything.
Jon Tattrie is a freelance journalist and the author of Black Snow and The Hermit of Africville.
Visit Skipperdavescharters.com to learn about visiting Sambro Island.