This Lighthouse Airbnb provides a firsthand look at coastal erosion
Greg Norton saved a lighthouse that was falling off an embankment on his property due to coastal erosion and converted it into an Airbnb.
Dating back to the early 1800s, Greg Norton's family has lived on the same plot of land in Annandale, P.E.I., for generations.
His ancestors maintained the Annandale lighthouse ever since it was built in 1901. Back then, however, it was much closer to the water.
The warming climate has increased the rate of erosion along P.E.I.'s shorelines, making lighthouses particularly vulnerable. In Norton’s case, the family lighthouse was literally teetering on the edge of collapse.
Determined to not let the piece of family and local history tumble into the sea, he worked to save it.
"It was just about ready to fall over with erosion and we pulled it back 100 feet," Norton told The Weather Network.
Inside the lighthouse that has been in Greg Norton's family for generations. (Nathan Coleman)
Norton has now converted the lighthouse into an Airbnb in an effort to raise funds to cover the costs of keeping it in the community.
But it’s also a stark reminder of the impacts a warming world is having on our lived environments.
Norton remembers his grandfather helping clear a path for horses to cross the ice on the Boughton River, which sits just adjacent to the lighthouse, back in the Decembers of his childhood. The winters he sees how are much different.
"What's been going on recently with climate change is we don't get river ice,” said Norton.
The lighthouse Airbnb will raise funds to cover the costs of keeping it in the community. (Nathan Coleman)
“So when I was younger, we used to always get ice here — this river would be iced up in December and would stay frozen until April. Now what we have is this river doesn't freeze until the end of January, sometimes into February. So when you get the big storms, the wave action will chew at the shore more than it did," Norton continued.
Adam Fenech, with the University of Prince Edward Island's climate lab, says the lack of sea ice is a threat especially damaging to the province's North Shore.
"It acted as a buffer or defense against the strong winter storms that we get," explained Fenech.
Back in 2019, UPEI reported that the Island was losing 20-40 centimetres annually to erosion in many locations, with some places seeing over a metre disappearing into the ocean.
A look inside the new Airbnb located in Annandale, N.S. (Nathan Coleman)
The Weather Network was given the opportunity to be the lighthouse Airbnb's first occupant. See the full story in the video above.
Thumbnail image: The lighthouse was moved back as the coast erodes in the area. (Nathan Coleman)
