Peggy’s Cove is roughed out on the eastern arm of St. Margaret’s Bay, route 333 on your GPS. The two-lane road from Halifax winds just enough to demand your attention. Hit it mid-afternoon and weigh the odds of getting tangled behind a screaming school bus. Maple. Kayak. B&B. We do take out. They’re a few of the words you’ll see repeated along the way, signs that the world is simplifying. Heroes Wanted is pinned on a billboard at one volunteer firehouse and minutes later an Anglican church narrow enough to wrap your arms around. Keep going, past the four-storied buildings that aren’t there, past the gabled and dormered country houses that are. 

Approaching the Swissair Flight 111 monument at Whalesback (a second lies across the bay in Bayswater) the boulders appear. They’re grand, scattered by glacial movement across mostly open terrain, breadcrumb-colored leftovers from a colder, angrier time. Look south now for the octagonal red and white lighthouse. It’s concrete and steel, not the weather-beaten wood many visitors assume it is. From a distance on a dark day it’s a bold protector. It stands alone on the rocky outcrop facing the Atlantic, the immortal salt-spitter. It’s been the house’s job description since 1868. This one’s been at it since 1914.

Southeast, 1 kilometer. Lobster Lane. Rocky Road. This is officially Peggy’s Cove. You’ll see signs of caution en route to the lighthouse. Warning. Injury and death have rewarded careless sight-seers here. In essence, enjoy at your own risk. It’s a bit of tough love that darkens the mood but who could be cross? Today it’s not just the wet granite near the water’s edge that drives you back, it’s the caked ice that creeps up past the water line. The waves roll in with know-how and crash heavily, at least as spellbinding as in t-shirt weather. Then where are the tour buses? Months away. Even the local galleries won’t be open until May. Three to five visitors take it in on this day, walking along the smooth granite tops that help define the attraction. They’re beiged, leavened and cracked like a baker’s bad dream, for a sightseer a catch. 

The Sou’ Wester is inviting in the cold. It’s the restaurant and gift-shop overlooking the cove. They lie under the same angled roof. The lights are on but dim, still open for a bite. The menu has a sense of the local trappings. Baked beans and seafood chowder are as suited to the location as everything else on the menu. Why burrito it into something it’s not. The lobster is a must. Guitars strum here on a Friday night and this one will be more intimate than usual. Everyone seems to be leaving. Maybe the girls working the gift-shop will attend. They seem cheerful enough even without the summer crowds. They float about the cash desk, open to chat with whomever in the company of yellow rain coats, local artwork and trinkets. Anything a lighthouse can be painted, etched or sketched on is here and sold. But outside is everything else. Another postcard sun drops into the sea.