Cape Forchu webcam’s popularity quadruples

Webcam most visited of 80 sites in province with film project underway

Since the news came out about the filming of The Lighthouse film at the Cape Forchu Lighthouse property in Yarmouth County, viewing traffic to the webcam on site has quadrupled.

Ralf Pickart, the founder of Nova Scotia Webcams, says the webcam is currently the most visited site of all his 80-plus cameras around the province.

He says there was a big boost after a story about the film was published by the Vanguard on Feb. 21.

“There have been close to 100,000 page views since it (the film) has been made public, with 15,000 unique users,” he says.

The movie being filmed is about a Nova Scotia lighthouse keeper in the early 20th century, starring actors Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson.

Although the webcam is located a fair distance from the set where filming is taking place, Screen shots show what the Cape Forchu Lightstation has been capturing on its webcam during film production. viewers have still been able to see action in the distance, starting with the construction of the film’s period lighthouse, lightkeeper’s house and outbuildings.

There has also been lots of truck and van traffic too with the arrival and departure of filming gear and props.

Access to the Leif Ericson trail to the immediate southeast of the Cape Forchu lighthouse has been closed since March 1 and will remain so until May 11.

A barricade to prevent public vehicles from entering the film site has been established at the John’s Cove beach corner, which prevents general public access to the film site.

Pickart says 81 per cent of the webcam viewers are new users. “Which is amazing!” he says. Statistics are as follows: viewers from Canada up 220 per cent, United States up 39 per cent, Germany up 25 per cent, Russia up 5,600 per cent, UK up 115 per cent and Australia up 500 per cent.

“Russia is interesting. Not sure if it’s related to filming,” he said.

(Although, Facebook fan pages for Robert Pattinson have large numbers of Russian members.)

Pickart said he thinks it’s great that so many fans can “take part” in the production even though it only shows the area in general and not the film set.

“And I’m happy to see that Cape Forchu gets more attention than Peggy’s Cove!”

To visit the Cape Forchu webcam online, search for Nova Scotia Webcams Cape Forchu Lightstation.