5 minute read
Island sentinels
P.E.I.’s irresistible lighthouses
STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY DARCY RHYNO
There’s something irresistible about lighthouses. Maybe it’s the way they stand unmoving in precarious places, overlooking a jagged, ship-shredding coastline. Maybe it’s their role in protecting those who work at sea. Or perhaps it’s their connection to a past we think of as a simpler time, a better time when lighthouses stood for safety, strength, and guidance.
While some romanticize the life of the lone lighthouse keeper — like the cowboy, a symbol of individual, steadfast strength — others are drawn to the complex mechanics and sophisticated communications methods associated with the lighthouse, proof of human ingenuity in pre-digital times.
Jackie Brown is the operations manager at Panmure Island lighthouse on Prince Edward Island. “This is a small community, so everybody in Panmure Island has very personal memories of this lighthouse,” she says. “We have people that get married here. Many people remember as little kids playing here.”
Brown tells the story of lightkeeper Leo Creed. He survived a German prisoner-of-war camp as a Second World War soldier. “The coast guard always gave preference to veterans,” says Brown, “so Leo got the job in 1946. He was from here, and he loved the kids. They really have fond memories of growing up, and the lighthouse was a hub for the kids, for sure. They used this place for hide and seek.”
The day before I visited, the lighthouse received a fresh coat of paint, a spruce-up that happens every four years, so it was looking spiffy, possibly as fresh as when it was built in 1853, making it P.E.I.’s first wooden lighthouse.
“We restored it in 2016,” says Brown, “and we’re constantly doing something. This year, we put in new railings because they were a little rickety, and they weren’t very pretty. Visitors thank us all the time. They say, ‘We really appreciate the work you do to make these lighthouses look so good.’”
Whatever the appeal, with 63 dotting P.E.I.’s coastline, it’s the ideal setting for a lighthouse themed itinerary. Visitors can head out on a scavenger hunt with the help of P.E.I.’s official lighthouse guide, available at any visitor centre, searching out as many as possible between North Cape Lighthouse at the Island’s northwestern tip and East Point Lighthouse teetering on a cliff at the eastern tip.
When visitors arrive by ferry from Nova Scotia, their first view of the island includes the three-storey 1876 light attached to its lightkeeper’s house at Wood Islands, 38 kilometres south of Panmure. As the ferry approaches the dock, crowds gather on the starboard rail to snap photos of the pretty light that gleams white against the green grass edged by low, red cliffs.
Just 31 kilometres west stands the five-storey Prim Point lighthouse, which Brown estimates is the most visited in the province because it’s easy to access and close to the capital, Charlottetown. Built in 1845, it’s also the province’s oldest. Locally made brick forms the conical 18-metre structure, but the outside is clad in wooden shingles painted white.
For me, one lighthouse shines brighter than the rest. On the island’s southwestern tip, the West Point Lighthouse looks like no other, ringed in black and white stripes. At nearly 21 metres, it’s P.E.I.’s tallest, while the museum that takes up several levels includes Eastern Canada’s most extensive collection of lighthouse equipment. Stories of a sea serpent, ghostly lights, bones that won’t stay buried, and fairy paths through the dunes add to the intrigue of the place.
And you can sleep here. In 1984, enterprising volunteers built an inn that extends from the lighthouse. The Tower Room and the Keeper’s Quarters are in the tower itself. The other 11 rooms each have a private deck overlooking the Northumberland Strait.
As at West Point, volunteers operate Panmure Lighthouse. When Jackie Brown moved to Panmure, she quickly rose to the rank of president shortly before the group bought the building from the federal government in 2015 for a dollar. It became the group’s responsibility to maintain the lighthouse, including paying for the new paint every four years.
“Our gift shop is our biggest fundraiser,” says Brown, “and of course we charge admission.” Knowing that my visit is keeping the Panmure Island Lighthouse looking so good, I’m happy to pay the $5 fee and climb to the top for the view over the Atlantic to Cape Breton. It’s irresistible.
Crab Cakes
Yields 14
By Chef Alyssa Hume of Lighthouse Willy’s at
Ingredients
2.5 lbs (1.13 kg) crab meat
1 cup (250 mL) mayonnaise
½ white onion, grated
1 celery stalk, finely chopped
2 eggs
¼ cup (60 mL) lemon juice
1 tsp (5 mL) salt
1 tbsp (15 mL) pepper
1 tbsp (15 mL) Old Bay seasoning
1 cup (250 mL) parmesan cheese
1 tbsp (15 mL) minced garlic
4 tbsp (60 mL) butter
3-5 cups (750-1250 mL) bread crumbs
Directions
Mix all ingredients except bread crumbs, garlic, and butter. Slowly add bread crumbs until mixture holds together enough to make portions. Use an ice cream scoop to portion into balls. Flatten slightly into thick pucks. Heat pan to medium low. Add enough butter and garlic to fry first batch of crab cakes. Cook 3 to 5 minutes on each side or until golden brown.
