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A Brief History of Canadian Lighthouses

A Brief History of Canadian Lighthouses

(Last Updated 19-May-02)
Copyright © 2002, StiffCrust@aol.com

Contents

  • The 1700's
  • Early 19th Century
  • The Imperial Lights: 1857-60
  • Latter 19th Century
  • Colonel Anderson's Tenure: 1900-14
  • Bibliography, Further Information
  • Museums and Societies
  • Photo Gallery and Credits
  • Stamps and Artwork
  • List of light houses in the movies.
  • List of my light house postcards available for sale or trade.
  • Update Log
  • Sign/view my Guestbook 

    • Roughly a millenium ago, Vikings settled near L'Anse Aux Meadows, in western Newfoundland. Several centuries later, Christopher Columbus, nephew of the lightkeeper at La Lanterna in Genoa, set sail for the New World. The millions of immigrants who eventually followed were beckoned to a safe landing in their new homeland by some of the historic lighthouses described here.

    The 18th Century

    The first lighthouse in North America was on Little Brewster Island in the outer harbor of Boston. First lit in 1716, it was damaged during the American Revolution and subsequently rebuilt (1783). Nowadays Boston Light is one of the very last of the manned lighthouses in North America, all others having been automated.

    The second-oldest lighthouse on the continent, and the first Canadian one, went into service at the French fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton island in 1734. Patterned after the lighthouse of Les Baleines built off La Rochelle in 1682, the beacon at Louisbourg was destroyed by British troops during the seige of 1758, and not rebuilt until 1842; the rubble of the original lighthouse is still visible at the base of the current Louisbourg lighthouse, which dates from 1924.

    Next came the lighthouse on Sambro Island in 1760. Located at the entrance to Halifax harbor, it has been upgraded over the years but remains the oldest continuously-operating lighthouse in North America, predating New Jersey's Sandy Hook lighthouse by 4 years, and such venerable lighthouses as Virginia's Cape Henry, Maine's photogenic Portland Head, and Long Island's Montauk Point lighthouses by 3 decades.

    Another early lighthouse in the Maritime provinces, at  Cape Roseway (McNutt's Island) dates from 1788 when Shelburne (NS) was booming as the largest settlement of United Empire Loyalists on the continent. The 92-foot octagonal masonry tower was braced with wooden timbers and had a clapboard exterior, and unfortunately it was damaged beyond repair by fire after being hit by lightning in 1959.

    In 1791 the first lighthouse was built on Partridge Island at the entrance to Saint John (New Brunswick). Six years earlier, the  first immigration quarantine station in Canada had been established there. The other major quarantine station, at Grosse Ile in Quebec, was built as a hasty response to the cholera epidemic of 1832. In that same year, the original lighthouse at Partridge Island was destroyed by fire. In 1859 the second lighthouse was equipped with the first steam-powered fog whistle, an invention of Robert Foulis.  The third Partridge Island lighthouse was operational from 1880 until it was replaced by a concrete octagonal tower in 1959.

    Early 19th Century

    Gibraltar Point lighthouse was built on what is now known as Toronto Island in 1808. After 99 years of service it was decommissioned in 1907, but remains as the oldest existing lighthouse on the Great Lakes, since the one built in 1804 on Mississauga Point at the mouth of the Niagara River was demolished to make room for fortifications during the War of 1812. Other early lighthouses on Lake Ontario included False Ducks Island in 1828, Point Petre in 1831, Nine Mile Point in 1833, and Presqu'ile in 1840. The latter two are still standing, although Presqu'ile had its lantern removed in 1965. In that same year, False Duck was demolished and its lantern eventually became the centrepiece of Mariner's Memorial Lighthouse Park and Museum near Milford ON.

    Meanwhile in Lower Canada (i.e. Quebec), Trinity House, patterned after the British organisation, was established in 1805. One of their first projects was to build a lighthouse on Ile Verte at the treacherous junction of the Saguenay and Saint Lawrence rivers. The 40-foot masonry tower of 1809 vintage is the 3rd-oldest Canadian lighthouse, and served as a model for those built downstream at Pointe des Monts in 1830, at Southwest Point and Heath Point (the eastern tip) on shipwreck haven Anticosti Island in 1835, at South Pillar and Ile Bicquette in 1843, and at Ile Rouge in 1848.

    In 1813 the earliest lighthouse on Newfoundland was built at Fort Amherst to mark "The Narrows" of St. John's harbor. Cape Spear and Cape Bonavista were built by Britain's Trinity House in 1836 and 1843, receiving the old reflector lamp apparatus from Scotland's famous Inchkeith and Bell Rock lighthouses, respectively.

    The shipbuilding boom in Canada's Atlantic Provinces prompted a flurry of lighthouse construction, starting in 1829 with Head Harbour on Franklin D. Roosevelt's beloved Campobello Island (New Brunswick) in the Bay of Fundy. In 1832 the original 1809 lighthouse on Brier's Island at the tip of Digby Neck in Nova Scotia was replaced; the current lighthouse dates from 1944. An important beacon was built in 1830 on desolate Seal Island, 18 miles off the southern tip of Nova Scotia and at the gateway to the Bay of Fundy. The timbers of its 67-foot octagonal tower have proven to be amazingly durable, although the 1903-vintage lantern and its 1st-order Fresnel lens were replaced (and moved to a replica lighthouse museum in Barrington Passage) in 1979. In fact the 8-sided wooden pattern was used in many subsequent Canadian lighthouses, notably in 1831 at wave-washed Gannet Rocks in the Bay of Fundy, at Port Burwell on Lake Erie, and in 1840 at Cape Forchu marking the entrance to Yarmouth harbor. In 1962 the original Yarmouth light was replaced by a distinctive concrete tower known locally as "the applecore".

    Numerous shipwrecks led to the construction in 1839 of lighthouses at Scatari Island and at both ends of St. Paul Island in Cape Breton. The original towers were of traditional wood construction, but when the south light burned down in 1914 it was replaced by a cast-iron cylindrical tower; the north tower was replaced circa 1970.

    The 60-foot conical brick tower built during 1845-7 at Point Prim is the oldest lighthouse on Prince Edward Island. It was designed and built by Isaac Smith, the same eminent architect who designed Province House in Charlottetown.

    Around mid-century, the use of whale or seal oil as lantern fuel was alleviated by the development of kerosene by Dr. Abraham Gesner.

     In 1851, a 40-year old mechanism from the Isle of May in Scotland was installed atop Newfoundland's new Cape Pine lighthouse. The tower was designed by the British firm Alexander S. Gordon using the same prefabricated cast-iron approach as Gibb's Hill, Bermuda and other outposts of the Empire. Subsequently, despite being unsuitable for the damp and cold winters, many cast-iron lighthouses were built in Newfoundland, including Channel-Port aux Basques in 1875, Lobster Cove Head in 1892, and the lighthouse which now guards the National Museum of Science & Technology which, after 50 years of service at Cape Race, was dismantled and re-erected with a new lantern at Cape North (NS) in 1906. Then in 1980, after a local outcry had kept the Seal Island lantern from being taken away, the historic lighthouse at the northern tip of Cape Breton was instead targeted for relocation to Ottawa.

    In 1884, public clamour following the 1867 Queen of Swansea tragedy led to a cast-iron lighthouse being erected at the summit of Gull Island, off Newfoundland's Baie Verte peninsula. At an elevation of 525 feet, it is the highest light on the eastern seaboard. 

    The Imperial Lights, 1857-60

    By the mid 19th century it was apparent that the economic development of British North America was being hampered by obsolete navigational aids. Lobbying by the Admiralty and by Canadian shipping magnates such as Montreal's Hugh Allan resulted in an ambitious 3-year building program, where all material and construction costs would be borne by Great Britain. The so-called "Imperial" lights were tall conical towers of brick or masonry construction where, in some cases, the granite was quarried and prepared by Scottish stonemasons, and shipped to the colony as ballast. By 1850's standards they must have seemed Imperial, i.e. built to withstand the ages.

    Four of these towers were built along the approaches to the Saint Lawrence: at Cap des Rosiers on the Gaspe peninsula; in the Straits of Belle Isle; at Pointe Amour near L'Anse au Loup on the Labrador coast; and at West Point on Anticosti Island. At 112 feet (34 m), the latter rivalled Cap des Rosiers as the tallest lighthouse in Canada until its replacement by an airport-type beacon and demolition in 1967.

    Six Imperial Towers were built on Lake Huron, at Point Clark, and on islands named Chantry, Nottawasaga, Christian, Griffith, and Cove. Construction of these limestone towers was entrusted to John Brown (1808-76). They were all 80 feet tall, the exception being Christian Island, a 55-foot tower comparable to Brown's 1858 lighthouse at Burlington.

    Construction of the 60-foot wooden lighthouse built on a caisson offshore from Point Pelee in Lake Erie was also undertaken in 1859; it was replaced in 1902 by a lighthouse built of steel plates, which can be seen today at Lakeview Park in Windsor.The Queens Wharf lighthouse in Toronto harbour was built in the 1860's and in 1913 was moved to the corner of Lakeshore Drive and Fleet Street, where it can be seen today. The recently restored lighthouse at Brandy Pot Island near Riviere du Loup (PQ) dates from 1862, the same year a wooden lighthouse was built on Bellechasse Island.

     Offshore from Vancouver Island on Canada's Pacific coast, the Imperial lighthouses at Fisgard Island and Race Rocks were built to safeguard the approaches to the Royal Navy base at Esquimalt.

    An interesting screw-pile lighthouse was built at Sandheads off the mouth of the Fraser river in 1880; it was demolished in 1913 and replaced by a lightship. After building a long jetty to stabilize the channel location, in 1960 a new lighthouse was built at Sandheads.
     
     

    Latter 19th Century

    The new Dominion of Canada undertook another round of lighthouse building following Confederation. The 1870's saw well over 100 new lighthouses go into operation; during this period Sable Island, "the graveyard of the Atlantic", and Bird Rock, an outcrop of the Magdalen Islands archipelago, were finally lit.

    A great number of lighthouses built during the 19th century were tapering wooden towers, usually 4 or 8-sided. They had the advantage of being cheap to build, and in some cases could be relocated if the site was threatened by erosion. Surviving examples include Miscou Island and Mulholland light (on Campobello Island) in New Brunswick, Margaretsville (NS), and Panmure Island , East Point,North Cape,West Point, Cape Bear, and Woods Island on PEI.

    Many of the towers from the 1870-1900 period were attached to the dwelling, for example Peases Island and East Ironbound Island in Nova Scotia, Hope Island in Georgian Bay, or the second lighthouse at Cap Gaspe in Quebec. Their ranks include a number of picturesque harbour or range lights such as Grande Anse in NB and New London rear range light in PEI.

    Unfortunately there is a long list of wooden lighthouses which burned down, including the second one at Cape Ray in Newfoundland, the one on Ile Haute in the Bay of Fundy, Holland Rock in BC, and the one on remote Greenly Island south of Labrador. The latter made headlines in 1928 when the German plane BREMEN crash landed there after making the first successful east-west transatlantic flight.

    Colonel Anderson's Tenure, 1900-14

    In the 1870's responsibility for navigational aids was transferred from the Department of Public Works to the Department of Marine and Fisheries. In 1904 the Department's Lighthouse Board was given a broader mission, and its dynamic chairman Colonel William Patrick Anderson (1851-1927) planned an ambitious construction program .Various coastal beacons were upgraded from relector-type to state-of-the-art Fresnel lenses, manufactured by Barbier, Benard & Turenne of Paris, or Chance Brothers of Birmingham (UK). In order to lessen the dependence on such foreign suppliers, the Dominion Lighthouse Depot was established in a former starch factory at Prescott, ON in 1903. Numerous old wooden towers were replaced by reinforced concrete or prefabricated cast-iron towers, examples being Metis, Cap de la Madeleine, Cap Chat and Matane on the Gaspe peninsula, Cape Croker on Georgian Bay, and Cape Race in Newfoundland. The latter was perhaps the most important landfall beacon for North Atlantic traffic, and remains one of a handful of lighthouses in the world equipped with a giant hyper-radiant lens. It also boasted a new diaphone or compressed-air fog horn, a 1902 invention of Toronto's J.P. Northery Ltd. Click to download an audio clip (WAV format) of the diaphone foghorn in Duluth MN, or of the electric foghorn (RealAudio format) at Race Rocks, BC.

    In 1904, the pre-fabricated cast-iron lighthouse at Fame Point, near Anse-a-Valleau on the Gaspe coast, became the first maritime wireless (Marconi) station in North America. In 1977, this lighthouse was dismantled and became a tourist attraction in Quebec City, but was scheduled to have been repatriated to its original site in late 1997.

    To support the higher-order lenses (which floated in a bath of mercury), exposed ferro-concrete towers were sometimes buttressed, such as at Point Atkinson near Vancouver BC, Natashquan Point in Quebec, Ile Parisienne in Lake Superior, or at Langara and Sheringham Point on Vancouver Island. In 1910 one of these towers was built at the windswept summit of Triangle Island, 25 miles off the northern tip of Vancouver Island. However, this turned out to be a costly blunder; at an elevation of 650 feet, the light was far too high to be visible in bad weather. After 10 years, the lantern was dismantled and brought back to the Coast Guard base in Victoria while the original plan of building a lighthouse at Cape Scott was carried out in 1927.

    The art of building tall lighthouses using reinforced concrete reached its ultimate expression in the flying buttresses of Estevan Point on the Pacific Coast, at Michipicoten Island and remote Caribou Island in Lake Superior, at Northeast Belle Isle in the Labrador Straits, at Bagot Bluff on Anticosti Island, and at Pointe-au-Pere near Rimouski, Quebec. At 109 feet the latter ranks with Point Amour as Canada's second-tallest lighthouse.

    Some lighthouses from the early 1900's were of traditional 8-sided timber construction, such as at Point Riche near Port au Choix, Newfoundland, Henry Island in Cape Breton (NS), at Riviere La Martre (site of a museum) on the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, Lonely Island in Lake Huron, or at Pachena Point on Vancouver Island, site of the terrible Valencia shipwreck of 1906. However, the vast majority of post-1910 lighthouses replicated the octagonal pattern using the new ferro-concrete construction technique. Examples are Peggy's Cove and Western Island (NS), Cap Gaspe and Cap au Saumon (PQ), and Machias Seal Island (NB). This style was carried to impressive height (102 feet) at Cape Sable Island (NS), Long Point in Lake Erie, and Great Duck Island in Lake Huron.

    The ornate lighthouse at Point Abino on Lake Erie dates from 1917. It was built as a memorial to the crew of the Buffalo-based US Lightship #82 which went down with all hands during the infamous Big Storm of November 1913, which claimed a total of twelve ships and 235 lives.

    Click to see Bibliography, Information Sources

    Museums, Societies, and Useful Addresses

    Photo Gallery

  • Other Dominions

Stamps and Artwork

Update Log

  • 1-Jul-96: started
  • 14-Feb-97: New link for Point Clark; Race Rocks magazine article
  • 24-Feb-97: St. Paul Island sub-page.
  • 6-Mar-97: Mohawk Island; Link for Imperial Lights article.
  • 1-April-97: Brandypot Islands (Duvetnor); Gibralter Point stamp; Pointe Amour links
  • 21-May-97: New link for Ron's page; Georgian Bay article from LH Digest.
  • 31-May-97: Added link to Long Point page; added some PEI links.
  • 18-July-97: Added guestbook; made NB page into a table & added links.
  • 22-Aug-97: Added Bird Rock, Sable Island, Anticosti & listed some new books.
  • 5-Sep-97: Added Battle Island, fixed Race Rocks & Coast Guard links, boat trips, etc.
  • 9-Sep-97: La Martre museum, Pointe-au-Pere, Quebec table, sub-pages
  • 14-Dec-97: West Point (PEI), links to Pete Amass (NB, NS, NF), Seal Island, fixed NSLPS link.
  • 20-Dec-97: Added link to Canadian Coast Guard "Lighthouse Heritage" website; fixed links, etc.
  • 13-Jan-98: Added Sable Island sub-page, Heath Point, Cape Pine, Gull Island, Fame Point, Presqu'ile, etc.
  • 16-Feb-98: Main Duck Island, Mariner's Memorial Park.
  • 3-March-98: Mariner's Memorial Park (website), Port Dalhousie, Lawren Harris painting.
  • 14-March-98: Peases Island (NS).
  • 22-March-98: Henry Island, Chantry Island restoration.
  • 06-April-98: Gibraltar Point page, Fame Point press announcement
  • 15-Apriil-98: Cape Roseway, Triangle Island, fixed Genoa & BC Archive links
  • 9-Sept-98: Added Caribou Island, Slate Islands & Trowbridge Island.
  • 24-Sep-98: Point Abino info/photos; Quebec sub-page, Bremen link
  • 1-Oct-98: West Point (old & new), Cap de Rabast, Heath Point, Entry Island
  • 14-Oct-98: PEI, Newfoundland & Ontario image galleries.
  • 17-Nov-99: Heritage Canada link; Ile Verte; Cape Enrage; fixed broken links
  • 07-Dec-99: Colonel Anderson info; new Point Abino pics; fixed Big Storm link
  • 30-Aug-00: Cap Chat; Cap Lumiere; fixed broken links.
  • 21-Sep-00: Added link to Partridge Island site
  • 24-Nov-00: Added Michipicoten & Davieaux Island; fixed Point Clark link.
  • 23-Feb-01: Lake Superior, Lake Huron, Lake Winnipeg, Natashquan.
  • 10-Mar-01: fixed Louisbourg link etc.

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