William E. deGarthe

William deGarthe (1907–1983) was born Birger Edward Degerstedt in Kaskinen, also known as Kaskö (Swedish), a remote island town off the northwest coast of Finland.

Impressed with the work and with the 19-year-old's determination, the man introduced deGarthe to a local publisher who hired him as an illustrator in January 1927 at a rate of $7 a week.

Declaring he was on a quest to find "the most beautiful spot on earth", in 1930 deGarthe quit his job in Montreal with the goal of sailing to Brazil to join an aunt there.

He travelled by rail to Halifax to board a ship bound for South America but on disembarking he was struck by the similarity between Nova Scotia and the rugged seacoast of his native Finland.

"[3] Soon after his arrival in Nova Scotia, deGarthe was introduced to Frank Wallace, a prominent Halifax marketing executive who immediately offered him a job as a commercial illustrator.

Biographer Douglas Pope recounts that when the Soviet Red Army invaded Finland in November 1939[4] deGarthe was determined to return to his homeland to fight.

[6] Throughout his career de Garthe worked in many mediums; however he is best known for his atmospheric oil paintings depicting scenes of life on and around the rugged Nova Scotia coast.

[8] During his career deGarthe created a number of important works in oils, notable among them Looking for the Mothership, an evocative 1955 painting depicting a dory carrying a lone fisherman, searching for his lost home schooner.

The canvasses, 136 x 210 cm, depict a fishing boat on stormy seas with four fishers appearing to reach out to a figure of Christ on the water, surrounded by 12 gulls.

For many years, framed copies of deGarthe's paintings for NSLP were a common sight in Nova Scotia homes and offices.

[11] deGarthe authored and illustrated three books: This is Peggy's Cove Nova Scotia (1956), Painting the Sea (1969), and The Story of the Herring Gull: Larus Argentatus (1977).

In the late 1970s, deGarthe began a ten-year project to sculpt a "lasting monument to Nova Scotia fishermen" on a 30 m (100 ft) granite outcropping behind his Peggy's Cove Home.

[12] With deGarthe's approval, Rene Barrette documented their progress on the sculpture in journals that were printed and sold to tourists who gathered around to watch the two artists at work.

He would remain there for the rest of his life, rebuilding his studio after it was destroyed by Hurricane Ginny in 1963. deGarthe and his wife were seasoned travellers, spending winters in the Caribbean and Florida, and visiting Spain, Portugal, Italy, Africa, and the Galapagos Islands among other places.

In 1975, 35 years after he first embarked for Brazil, he finally reached Rio de Janeiro where the sight of the statue of Christ the Redeemer inspired him to create his own monument in stone in Peggy's Cove.