At Cape Enrage
... In the High Tide of My Imagination

I’ve always wanted to gaze out over the Bay of Fundy from the top of the Cape Enrage Lighthouse. This small, red-and-white-clapboard building, the oldest lighthouse on the New Brunswick mainland, has always captured my imagination. For more than 130 years it has stood here guiding mariners through the churning waters of the highest tides on earth. And now, on this fine autumn day, I’m finally realizing my dream.

I’ve been coming to Cape Enrage for years. I’ve been here in winter when snow squalls made it impossible to see much more than 10 or 15 feet ahead, let alone the pounding surf far below. I’ve been here in winds that roared and swirled around me. And I’ve been here on warm summer nights when it seemed I could reach out and touch every star in the universe. On those nights, as I walked along Barn Marsh Beach, I thought about the lighthouse keepers who kept vigil far above and what they might have thought about as they dutifully manned their station.

Perhaps it’s the name — Cape Enrage — that has always held me spellbound. Or perhaps it’s the way the landscape makes me feel and the constant rhythm of the 50-foot tides. Or maybe it’s the connection to myself that I always experience here as I look out over the soaring cliffs towards the distant horizon of my consciousness, and the churning waters of my emotions.

By Lane MacIntosh