{"id":12763,"date":"2019-12-12T01:33:50","date_gmt":"2019-12-12T05:33:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=12763"},"modified":"2019-12-12T01:33:50","modified_gmt":"2019-12-12T05:33:50","slug":"west-point-lighthouse-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=12763","title":{"rendered":"West Point Lighthouse Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In the story of my trip to Prince Edward Island<\/a>, I’m on our last full day on the island. To recap:<\/p>\n

We drove up the coast on the weekend.<\/a> <\/p>\n

Monday we stayed in Cavendish and visited Green Gables Heritage Place<\/a>, the Haunted Wood<\/a>, Montgomery Park<\/a>, the site of L. M. Montgomery’s Cavendish home,<\/a> and took a shore drive back to our cottage<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tuesday, we visited L. M. Montgomery’s Birthplace<\/a>, the Green Gables Museum at Silver Bush<\/a>, and saw Anne of Green Gables: The Musical<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wednesday we drove to Greenwich Dunes, where we walked through old farmland and woods,<\/a> then on a floating boardwalk right through a lake<\/a>, and then over dunes onto the beach<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Thursday was Bideford Parsonage Museum<\/a> followed by North Cape<\/a>. But it was also the night I found out that my father had passed away.<\/p>\n

So I was in something of a daze on Friday. We did take off sight-seeing again. I was disappointed in the lighthouse at North Cape, since we couldn’t go inside, so I found a lighthouse that had a museum, and we headed for West Point, the westernmost point on the island. The lighthouse there had a museum and an inn.<\/p>\n

This time, I got a picture of the colorful signs for the scenic route we were taking.<\/p>\n

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Once again, I didn’t make much effort to get pictures along the beautiful drive, but here was a pretty spot when we stopped for a moment:<\/p>\n

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You can see the beginnings of Autumn in the trees:<\/p>\n

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After some navigating challenges, we arrived at the lighthouse, and yes, they had a museum and we did a self-guided tour.<\/p>\n

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The ground floor had a variety of things from the history of the lighthouse, including information about the lighthouse keepers of the past and their families.<\/p>\n

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The West Point Lighthouse Timeline was very interesting.<\/p>\n

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This sign laid out what we were going to see at the museum —
\nGround level: West Point Lighthouse – “an introduction to our Lightkeepers and a look at the history of Island lighthouses through artifacts and displays”
\nSecond level: The Life of a Lightkeeper – “Glimpse the life of a lightkeeper and his family” This level lets you book a night in their “spare room” as part of the Inn.
\nThird level: The Lighthouses of PEI – information and artifacts about the Island’s 63 lighthouses
\nFourth level: Seeing the Light – “Get to the heart of the lighthouse. Inspect the lamp and lens system and the mechanics that makes them work.”
\nFifth level: A View from the Top – “Reach the top to discover our 4-ton lantern and lens. Cast your view outward to take in the stunning vista of West Point and beyond.”<\/p>\n

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I enjoyed this map of Prince Edward Island shipwrecks. I found the Marco Polo<\/em>, which wrecked off the shore near Cavendish when L. M. Montgomery was a child. I guess it’s a little ghoulish to say I “enjoyed” it — I was shocked by how many there were.<\/p>\n

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This picture was taken from a few levels up. You can see that the offshore water here, too, is as red as the land.<\/p>\n

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A display about all 63 lighthouses of Prince Edward Island filled this level.<\/p>\n

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Here’s what it said about the lighthouse we were in:<\/p>\n

West Point: Called the first of PEI’s 2nd generation lighthouses, West Point Lighthouse was the first of the island’s square towers. Built in 1875, at 67 feet, eight inches from base to vane, it is also its tallest.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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And the lighthouse we’d seen the day before:<\/p>\n

North Cape: Built in 1865, North Cape is one of three “Sister Lights” in the Maritimes. These octagonal towers are among the oldest wooden frame towers still standing in the region.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Now we’d climbed a little higher:<\/p>\n

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Explaining how the light works:<\/p>\n

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The ladder-like stairs to the very top:<\/p>\n

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And here’s the view from on top:<\/p>\n

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The light itself is huge.<\/p>\n

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Looking straight across the strait:<\/p>\n

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When I zoomed in, you can actually see New Brunswick!<\/p>\n

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We walked around outside the lighthouse by the beach.<\/p>\n

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And then we went on a short hike into the woods.<\/p>\n

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I like to think this could be L. M. Montgomery’s “Birch Path.”<\/p>\n

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And back to the lighthouse!<\/p>\n

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So that was our last adventure on Prince Edward Island, except a couple intriguing stops on the way back. We did stop at a quilt shop, and Darlene bought some adorable Anne of Green Gables fabric.<\/p>\n

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And when we were almost back to Cavendish we stopped at “Hostetter’s Viewscape” with an incredibly picturesque view of French River.<\/p>\n

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“Where Farm Meets Tide” — that could describe a lot of Prince Edward Island.<\/p>\n

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And I’m still not all that great at selfies, but you can see I was having fun!<\/p>\n

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And believe it or not, our last day on Prince Edward Island ended with a beautiful sunset.<\/p>\n

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So that night we began packing things up, ready to drive back south after an amazing week with tried and true lifelong friends in an incredibly beautiful place. I’ll do one more post about our weekend driving home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the story of my trip to Prince Edward Island, I’m on our last full day on the island. To recap: We drove up the coast on the weekend. Monday we stayed in Cavendish and visited Green Gables Heritage Place, the Haunted Wood, Montgomery Park, the site of L. M. Montgomery’s Cavendish home, and took […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prince-edward-island"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12763"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12816,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12763\/revisions\/12816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}