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    Peggy’s Cove: The Amazing History of a Coastal Village
    Peggy’s Cove: The Amazing History of a Coastal Village
    Peggy’s Cove: The Amazing History of a Coastal Village
    Ebook92 pages2 hours

    Peggy’s Cove: The Amazing History of a Coastal Village

    By Lesley Choyce

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    About this ebook

    Here is the complete history of the famous cove and the unique village that hosts thousands of visitors each year. The story begins with the formation of the rocks along these shores and the impact of the glaciers. The Mi'kmaq were the first to live here in the summers, harvesting the riches of the sea. A land grant in 1811 brought the first hardy settlers. Sculptor William de Garthe made his home here and created his monument to the coastal fishermen out of the sheer granite outcropping in his backyard. In 1998, Swissair Flight 111 crashed off the shores of Peggy's Cove and the community opened its doors to the world in an effort to provide support for the rescue workers and the families of the victims. From the earliest days to the present, the story of Peggy's Cove has been a tale of natural wonder and human endurance.

    About The Author
    Lesley Choyce lives at Lawrencetown Beach and is the author of 65 books including Nova Scotia: Shaped by the Sea and The Coasts of Canada, a history of the country''s shorelines. He has also edited Nova Scotia: a Traveller''s Companion, which is also available from Pottersfield.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPottersfield
    Release dateJun 15, 2011
    ISBN9781897426340
    Peggy’s Cove: The Amazing History of a Coastal Village
    Author

    Lesley Choyce

    No one has a clearer view of Atlantic Canada's literary endeavours over the past twenty years than Lesley Choyce. He is the founder of the literary journal Pottersfield Portfolio, and the publisher of Pottersfield Press. He has edited several fiction anthologies and has been the in-house editor of many books from Pottersfield Press including Making Waves, a collection of stories by emerging authors from Atlantic Canada. He is the author of more than fifty books in genres ranging from poetry and essays to autobiography, history and fiction for adults, young adults, and children. Among his recent books are the novels The Republic of Nothing, World Enough, and Cold Clear Morning, and the story collection Dance the Rocks Ashore. Choyce is the writer, host, and co-producer of the popular literary show television program, Off the Page with Lesley Choyce, which is broadcast across the country on Vision TV. He also teaches in the English department of Dalhousie University in Halifax and is leader of the rock band The Surf Poets.

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      Book preview

      Peggy’s Cove - Lesley Choyce

      Peggy’s Cove

      The Amazing History

      of a Coastal Village

      Lesley Choyce

      Published by Pottersfield Press at Smashwords

      Lawrencetown Beach, Nova Scotia, Canada

      Copyright © 2008 Lesley Choyce

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or used or stored or transmitted in any form or by any means – graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying – or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any requests for photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed in writing to the publisher or to Access Copyright, The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, 1 Yonge Street, Suite 800, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5E 1E5 (www.accesscopyright.ca). This also applies to classroom use.

      Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

      Choyce,Lesley, 1951-

      Peggy’s Cove : the amazing history of a coastal village / Lesley Choyce.

      ISBN 978-1-897426-34-0

      1. Peggys Cove (N.S.) – History.  2. Peggys Cove (N.S.) – Description and travel. I. Title.

      FC2349.P45C46 2008              971.6’22                    C2008-903164-4

      Cover design by Gail LeBlanc

      Cover photo: istockphoto

      The author would like to thank Michelle Mulder for her research assistance as well as Peggy Amirault and Julia Swan for their diligence in editorial work.

      Pottersfield Press acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program for our publishing activities. We acknowledge the ongoing support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada. We also thank the Province of Nova Scotia for its support through the Department of Tourism, Culture and Heritage.

      Ebook editor: Mary Ann Archibald

      Pottersfield Press 83 Leslie Road

      East Lawrencetown, Nova Scotia, Canada, B2Z 1P8

      Website: www.pottersfieldpress.com

      To order phone toll-free 1-800-NIMBUS9 (1-800-646-2879)

      Printed in Canada

      To the People of Peggy’s Cove –

      Past and Present

      Contents

      Introduction: Waves of White and Blue Ferocity

      1. A Gift from Africa

      2. First Families and Foundering Ships

      3. The Pious and the Privateers

      4. Lobsters, Cod and Sea Serpents

      5. The Keeper of the Light

      6. A Small Basin in the Mighty Rock

      7. Rum on the Rocks

      8. A Wharf, a War and an Army of Artists

      9. A Main Street Paved with Saltwater

      10. The Age-Old Rocks

      11. A Sea of Peril

      Epilogue: The Danger and the Wonder

      Bibliography

      Illustration and Photo Credits

      Introduction

      Waves of White and Blue Ferocity

      The parking lot by the Sou’Wester Restaurant near the Peggy’s Point lighthouse is empty on a bitterly cold January morning. The sun is low in the east and waves left over from a nor’easter are pounding the rocky shores with the sound of cannons. As I walk the path towards the lighthouse, I see spiralling threads of mist rising from the ocean. Sea smoke or sea wraiths are the result of very cold air over the relatively warmer water. The sun filters through these dancing ghosts and makes the whole scene surreal.

      The rocks are giant round, smooth monuments that seem to have been sculpted by the hands of artists. There is an impossible, otherworldly haunting quality to this place. The battery of waves continues in surround sound. Gulls are rising and dipping in the chill winter air.

      My own thoughts are pure. I am overwhelmed by this place. I’ve been here before many times but now, alone like this, I give in to a feeling of reverence resulting from the stark, hard beauty I see before me. The sweep of the bare granite seacoast stretches for miles to the east. I look down at where I walk, wary of the patchy ice – seawater that has frozen on these massive stones.

      The powerful waves from yesterday’s storm – now headed north and east towards Newfoundland – rear up with white and blue ferocity and then slam with all their might into the massive walled rocks. Close up, the crashing wave has a different sound now, that of an uncontrolled explosion, and it is followed by the spewing white foamy spray rocketing two storeys into the air. I cautiously study the rock beneath my feet and stand only where it is dry. I am mesmerized as each wave in a set of ten tries to outdo the previous one with its intensity.

      I hunker down in a safe place beneath a rocky outcropping, far enough from the danger of exploding waves to prevent myself from being pummelled and sucked into the maw of the raging sea, but close enough to draw upon the intense energy of the great salty show before me. The waves come in sets of seven to ten with a minute or two respite between.

      The sun is full upon my face and has lit up the landscape around me with rich morning tones of yellow, copper and rust colours. It feels like a sacred moment and I am reminded that the early inhabitants of Nova Scotia, the Mi’kmaq people, knew this place and made pilgrimages here to feel just what I am feeling now: awe of the natural beauty and power and the awareness of being in the presence of larger forces. It might be enough to say that those forces are the elements themselves. The North Atlantic, the sun rising up out of the sea, the swooping gulls, the massive waves. But it is more than that as well. There is a spiritual presence here that I do not quite have a name for. I’m sure the Mi’kmaq had a word for it, however, and others who have visited here may have also named it.

      Standing up now with the flood of light and the leaping spray of waves catching that morning sun to deliver a shower of crystals, I feel both small and large. Small, because I feel in my bones how insignificant I am in the presence of such grandeur and power. Large, because I feel intrinsically connected to all this rock and sea and sky. Beyond the crashing waves, the Atlantic stretches out in its immensity from here to Europe, from here to Morocco. I am reminded that these boulders beneath me were once part of what is now the northwest corner of that continent. I am positioned on what was once a part of Africa.

      Alone on the shore here at Peggy’s Cove, there is nothing in my immediate vision that is of this century or any of the previous hundred. I have travelled back in time and am a mere tourist in a world of ancient cold seas and antediluvian geology. It is humbling and profound. I feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

      And I feel that other presence: of God, of spirit, of things larger and unknown. I wonder what it was like for those first Europeans who sailed past here and for those who had the courage to guide their boats into the little harbour and step ashore. Did they see it as a wasteland? For on one level, there is nothing here.

      It is the emptiness and barrenness of Peggy’s Cove and the surrounding hills that give an unearthly quality. And yet, it is one of the wonders of the world. Millions have made pilgrimage here, not exactly knowing why. Most would be called tourists, yes.

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