March 22, 2025. Some beaches are homes to souls lost at sea.
Growing up in the Maritimes, I have heard many stories about ship wrecks off the cost of Nova Scotia, and well to be honest, I never really cared. With the exception of the Titanic, it was not an interest to me… it was like.. yada yada yada …. oh, another ship wreck from way back in the day, who cares. It was just something that we learned about but it never really sunk in … pardon the pun.
I am someone who is an avid reader… I found a book laying around at my mothers house. A very well written novel called @The Gravesavers. The author is @Sherre Fitch. It is a novel about a young girl who goes to stay with her grandmother one summer in small fishing village located in Nova Scotia. While she is visiting she discovers a small human baby skull on the beach located near her grandmother house. The beach area is Sandy Cove… and it perked my interest to take a drive out and see what it was all about. As it turns out there is a little bit of both fact and fiction.
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The novel goes between two story lines, the modern day granddaughter/grandmother visit and the voyage of SS Atlantic ( true story… ) that left England on March 20, 1873.
I know about this ship wreck, i remember learning about it in school. It is also featured at the maritime of the Atlantic museum. I guess when I was younger i never really thought much about what it would mean to cross a large ocean in a wooden boat for about 2-3 weeks. I mean even my own grandmother arrived here on a boat as an English war bride in 1946. Maybe just having boats, as part of our history for immigration, allows it to be thought as “no big deal”. Or maybe, now , being 50 years old, has given me the insight to really have a grasp of how precious life is and how incredibly brave anyone had to be to travel like that.
It was such a beautiful sunny day. It took about 1 hour to get there from Halifax. The memorial is located at 178 Sandy Cove rd. When we arrived we were the only people there. We parked in the the graveyard and started the tour from there. What grabbed my attention in the book was the actual location of where the ship sank. So close to land, but yet too far for everyone to survive. The ship was carrying approx 950 passengers and crew and over 500 people died. All women and children perished except for 1 boy named John Hindly. His family are one of the main characters in the novel along with a few others.
Like any good story of shipwrecks …. there are a few ghosts…. and situations that seem a little weird. For example the SS Atlantic hit rocks and sank on April 1 1873. Ironically, the original church that held the service for all those that had drowned, burned down on April 1 1942. I personally feel that is not just a coincidence.
Another very cool thing to see here is how there are paths to different graves around the church area. You weave in and out along a path the leads up to the church and the museum.
We walked along the path back down towards the board walk that eventually takes you into Sandy cove area. It is a small little beach, beautiful white sand. Located among local homes and cottages. The kinda place where people know you are not from the area.
We continued our hike, following a sandy path to the other side that lead to a light house. The trail continues along the coast and eventually leads to an area that is called wreck cove. The name pretty much says it all. This was an area that apparently was known for sinking ships. Due to large rock laying just under the waters surface, almost like an ice burg, waiting to rip the bottom of passing ships. That was the fate of the SS Atlantic.
Without giving too much of the story away, the Novel focuses on the relationship between granddaughter/ grandmother, a local teenage boy and of course some skeleton’s in the closet…. literally. The mass grave that was dug in the late 1800’s has started to become exposed and the skeleton’s are washing up on the beach. The young girl takes on the task to raise awareness and hopefully create some fundraisers to help save the grave site.
I love a good book and especially one that is written with local landmarks. Standing on the shoreline I watched the water, the waves were choppy. I felt the energy humming out from the waves. This beach is small, but very powerful.
- small local beach, very limited parking
- beautiful white sand
- hiking trail
- lighthouse
- ghost stories
- museum
- small boardwalk
Maritime beach blogger 