Photos: The Quaintness of Peggy's Cove

Peggy's Cove, a little south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, is probably the most photographed fishing village in Nova Scotia.  It has a population of only about 50.  As this photo shows, the inlet on which fishermen have built their houses and docks offers superb protection from the ocean.
The late afternoon sun highlights the rocky coast and illustrates why a sheltered harbor would be such an attractive and necessary location for a fishing village.  Peggy's Cove was settled 200 years ago by German fishermen, which is somewhat unusual, as Scottish and Irish settlers were more common. 
I tried to capture the ocean and cove at an instant when a wave crashed upon the rocky shore.  The local legend is that Peggy's Cove was named after the nickname for a young girl who was the only survivor of a nearby ship wreck and was adopted and raised by a local family.

The weathered shingles of this sea side home is common in the area.  In Arizona where I live, you would never see a house like this.  Wood shingles are an uncommon roofing material, as tile roofs are more common because they withstand the sun.  In Nova Scotia, shingles are used for siding, I assume because they must withstand the wind and water of the North Atlantic sea coast. The Peggy's Cove lighthouse, which I silhouetted against the setting sun in this photo, was built in 1914 to replace an earlier 1868 lighthouse.  The older lighthouse became the house for the lighthouse keeper until it was damaged by a hurricane in 1954 and removed.  The lighthouse was automated in 1958, so there is no longer a lighthouse keeper.