CANADA.
Photographic Documentary Tour Book, National Parks Travel.
We get positively giddy when we are perusing a flea market’s shelves and run across a well done niche-interest regional documentary that clearly resulted from a labor of love. There is no better way to describe Courtney Thompson’s exhaustive guide to the lighthouses dotting Canada’s northeast Atlantic coast. Dedicated to her father, who obviously willed to his daughter a love of Canadian lighthouses, Thompson is responsible for all of the text, maps, and most of the photography in this trim, yet packed volume. The sheer number of individual structures profiled speaks to the uneven, angular, and often treacherous oceanic edges of the region. Over 140 lighthouse profiles (each consisting of a brief description, photo, and touring map) are spread over four provinces: New Brunswick’s Bay of Fundy and its Northern / Acadian Shores, Nova Scotia’s Evangeline Trail and its Northern, Eastern, and Cape Breton Shores, Prince Edward Island’s Western, Central, and Eastern Shores, and the rugged coast of Newfoundland & Labrador. Published in 2000, it is also a book with a purpose. Much of the region’s lighthouses had been neglected or were falling apart, with many lost or torn down across the second-half of the 20th century. But as the century drew down, more and more preservationist-minded Canadians stepped up to secure a future for this fantastic collection of vital buildings. Thompson wrote: “the lighthouses are now seeing a gradual renaissance; they are being preserved rather than destroyed, restored rather than ignored, reconfigured as tourist sites and interpretive centers rather than abandoned to slow destruction by harsh weather, encroaching seas, or intentional lack of care.” With their bright welcoming attitude, some decorated in quite graphic and designerly ways, these highly geometric sentinels of an unforgiving climate and coastline leap off the page. It had us straight away planning our trip to the northeastern seaside provinces of Canada and are almost certain they’ll have the same effect on you. [Condition: Used Very Good. There is only the slightest bit of shelfwear and scratching on the cover, with only a single bent edge to report. The interior, with all its fantastic color photography, is pristine.]
Condition: Used Very Good.
Travel / Touring.
Courtney Thompson.
CatNap Publications / Quebecor Atlantic, 2000.
Oversized Softcover, 128 pgs, 8.5 x 11” / 1.5 lb
