MOST PHOTOGRAPHED LIGHTHOUSE

In all of the world, there is one, most photographed light house. It sits on a heap of granite, thrust up out of the Atlantic on Nova Scotia's eastern shore. At Peggy's Cove, tourists come by the thousands. They come to see, to take photographs of the lighthouse but it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It is human history cast against the timelessness of stone and sea, a story begging to be fleshed out. I am reminded of the Johnny Mercer song, “When an irresistible  force, such as you, meets an old, immovable object like me, you can bet as sure as you live, . . .” The song about lovers pairs with metaphor the immovable sea and shore, and with people who have breached that boundary for as long as there have been boats. 

I arrived at first light, before sunrise. Fishing boats were already setting lobster pots, so close you could hear their engines idling and men’s voices across the water but the parking lot was empty. The sky was low and broken so there was no first dash of morning against the white lighthouse. I took photos anyway. Fog came and went and finally, sun broke through and the shots I wanted were there. I was ready and it was a good shoot. 

In the restaurant I had fishcakes, beans and coffee. When I came out a half hour later, there were several busses and hundreds of people, climbing on the rocks around the lighthouse. In another hour, people would be swarming around the land mark like ants on a peach seed. There would be no more uncluttered photographs that day. Leaving my camera in the car, I took one last walk out on the rocks. 

Some folks are satisfied to walk the path while others need to climb up on the rocks. A few venture down into the crevices and labyrinths, to either turn around and come back or climb on, up the far reaches to the point. Not many go all the way out to the edge but there were a few when I got there. On the edge, there is no place to look but out to sea. Straight out, the next dry land is Morocco. To say it’s a dangerous place is hyperbole: it’s no more dangerous than a street corner in a busy city. You are only one step away from disaster. But the metaphor rings a little truer. It is the boundary where man’s domain meets water world. The boats and their men from the early morning were out there somewhere; with modern equipment and safety features to help guide them home. They go out but they don’t all come home. Every fishing port has a monument to men who have been lost at sea. 

The lighthouse behind us was a testament to man’s perilous relationship with the sea. It helped signal the way home and it marked dangerous headlands and rocky shores. We have radar and GPS now but nobody wants to photograph radar beacons or GPS machines. The lighthouse has history and the metaphor, like lovers, marks the attraction of earth’s immovable reality and of man’s irresistible urge to go there.