Posted on February 23, 2022
A 92-year-old Port Morien resident now has under 15 feet of property separating her house from a cliffside
PORT MORIEN, N.S. — For many Cape Bretoners with property on coastal shorelines, living life on the edge takes on a new meaning during storm season.
For 92-year-old Port Morien senior Joyce Peach, it’s involved watching chunks of her backyard literally slide away.
Winter storms that have pummeled Cape Breton recently – including the Friday storm that left thousands without power and brought 100 km/h winds and 30-50 mm of rain – are chipping away at her heavily eroded shoreline.
“(My daughter Norma’s) usually over here every day, and after any storm she’ll always tell me, ‘Okay, there’s this much mud down on the beach or there’s another rock (fallen) down there,’ or something like that,” said Joyce in an interview with the Cape Breton Post. “But the erosion is bad.”
Losing land
The Cape Breton Post first interviewed Joyce in April 2021, when her two-storey, 111-year-old house was just 15 feet from the shortest cliff’s edge. Her son, Stan Peach, said that every few years he moves back the perimeter fence in her backyard as the cliffside is gradually consumed by worsening erosion.
He will have to move it back again this spring, sooner than expected, after moving two sheds last summer that had become too close to the cliff’s edge. He captured a video on Thursday afternoon of mud sliding down his mother’s cliffside, despite the snowy, cold surrounding weather.
“That erosion is eventually going to make it to the road (in front of the house),” said Stan. “You’re not even going to be able to access that back lane (behind the house) eventually.”
The original deed to the property, which was built by Stan’s paternal grandfather Fred Peach in 1910, shows 120 feet between the house and the cliff’s edge.
“My husband and his father, they used to drive down over the bank to the wharf,” said Joyce.
The house is now less than 15 feet at the closest cliff edge, which boasts a roughly 40-foot drop-off.
“From the house to the top of the cliff, I might have 13 to 15 feet,” said Joyce. “ … I always claim that I own 40 feet of the ocean.”
Stan, who moved to Glace Bay after marrying in his early 20s, said he has seen the rate of cliffside erosion at the property increase “big time” over the years.
“Every time I go over there (it’s worse),” he said. “ … I went back there (Friday) after being there (Thursday), … and more of the cliff slid (Thursday) night into (Friday).
“(The shoreline) is soft, it’s really soft. I think there’s going to be a big slide there (one day), and God only knows what it’s gonna entail.”
Joyce, however, said she has no intention of living anywhere else for the remaining years of her life.
“I’ll go out feet first,” she said. “I’ll be here until the end.”
Lifetimes of memories
Stan was about ten years old when his family moved into the house in 1963 to keep his paternal grandfather, Fred Peach, company when his grandmother passed away. Joyce has been living in the house ever since.
“… (Fred) was an elderly man and he needed somebody to look after him, so (my husband and I) sold our little house and we moved in with him,” said Joyce.
“We used to be able to walk down over the cliff and go swimming, but you can’t do that anymore.”
Stan shared one of the house’s three bedrooms with his three brothers, while his sister took the smallest room and his parents the third. He has many memories of playing with his siblings on the property as a child.
“We used to play as kids on the side of that cliff with a rope hanging over it, if you can believe it,” he said with a laugh. “Rescue 8, it was called, that was a show that was on TV when we were kids.
“We’d hang a rope over the side, and somebody’d go down on the side of the cliff and we’d throw a couple of ropes over and rescue that person.”
Joyce isn’t the only person whose property is suffering from erosion. Several on the street are dealing with the same issue – the vacant house next to her, which she said is owned by a man in Halifax, sits even closer to the shore
“There’s people like me all along the beach just here that are losing land,” said Joyce. “As bad as the erosion is here, there’s people up the road that are worse, going toward the sand bar. They could come out their front door and walk right over the bank.”
The last resident
Seventy per cent of the population of Nova Scotia lives in coastal communities, according to the Ecology Action Centre (EAC), and the province will experience the greatest local sea-level rise amounts in Canada because of land subsiding as the ocean level rises.
EAC notes that by 2100, global sea levels are expected to rise approximately 1 metre above current levels.
“We withstood (Hurricane Dorian) two years ago in 2019,” said Joyce. “I think (the property)’ll stand up to a couple more storms.”
The house’s coastal view has attracted many tourists over the years seeking attractive look-offs on Cape Breton Island for pictures.
“I’ve had people from Yukon and people from the (United) States come and take pictures and say, ‘You’ve got a million-dollar view,’” said Joyce. “’Yes,’ I say, ‘And that’s all I’ve got, is just a million-dollar view,’ with the erosion and the loss of property and that.”
Stan thinks it would be nice if the spot is kept as a look-off after his mother is gone and the house is removed.
“What a nice memorial that would be,” he said. “ … If that property could be a look-off, for people going around the Cabot Trail, to come down there and be able to take some pictures.”
Joyce knows she will be the last person to ever live in the house, which she thinks of as home base for her children and grandchildren.
“When they come for a visit, I say ‘Nana’s always got extra beds,’” she said. “It’s a good old house.”
