At this point it should be stated that my photographic outfit consisted of an ancient but useful 4 × 5 “Waterbury Detective,” containing a wide angle, short-focus lens, and designed for general handwork; a 4 × 5 long-focus “Premo” with a 6½-inch trade lens and Unicum shutter, for use from a tripod or in photographing nests, landscapes, etc., and a 5 × 7 twin lens with a 10-inch lens and Prosch shutter, a camera made especially for animal photography, but which was undesirably bulky.
None of these was of service in photographing the inhabitants of Percé Rock from the land, nor could a telephoto be used to advantage, the Rock being so much higher than the adjoining mainland. From a boat near the base of the southeast side of the Rock a better opportunity is afforded for photographing its summit, and the best of several attempts made at this point is here presented.[72] Examined under a glass it conveys some idea of the number of birds occupying the top of the Rock; and while one regrets that the camera does so little justice to the subject, one can not but rejoice that here, at least, is one place to which probably for all time birds may return each year and rear their young in perfect security.
In crevices in the face of the Rock numbers of Guillemots nest, and directly above the pierced opening dwell a colony of about thirty Kittiwakes, who have apparently taken up their residence in the Rock within comparatively recent years, since none were here in 1881 when Mr. William Brewster visited Percé.
72. Percé Rock from southeast end. The Cormorants and Gulls may be dimly seen on the summit of the Rock.
Wherever one be about Percé, in the town or out, the Rock is the prominent feature of the coast line. It dominates its surroundings as a snowcapped mountain rules its dependent ranges. To the bird lover it possesses a double fascination, and one is constantly attracted by the ceaseless cries of the throng of hovering birds, who in some indescribable way seem to invest their home with a sense of the charm, the freedom, the wildness of a sea-bird’s life. It is a true bird rock; man has no part in it.
At sunset this bond between the Rock and its inhabitants seemed especially strong and real. Through a notch in the western hills the last rays of the sun fell squarely upon the Rock, illuminating it and the ever-present soaring Gulls after the land and the sea were in shadow. Slowly the light left the Rock, until it, too, was of the same gray-blue as its surroundings; then, like the beams from a searchlight, it struck the circling mass of Gulls, making them seem a flurry of snowflakes descending into the gloom below.
The pilgrim to Percé Rock will find that the object of his journey not only exceeds in grandeur his brightest imagination of it, but he will be further rewarded by discovering Percé itself and the country round about to be of exceptional interest and beauty. It was the season of codfishing, and every morning a fleet of a hundred or more stanch little boats, each with two men, put out into the bay for a day’s fishing. Their return, late in the afternoon, was an eventful part of the day. Then the beach was the center of attraction as boat after boat came in, the men depositing their catch on the sands, then setting up their tables and “splitting” the cod with surprising dexterity.[73]
73. Splitting cod on Percé beach. Percé Rock in the distance.