Congratulations to the movers and the local citizens for making this happen.
Here's a photo from the CBC PEI's website - see the link below for more photos...
Showing posts with label PEI Lighthouses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PEI Lighthouses. Show all posts
Monday, December 22, 2014
Cape Bear Lighthouse, safely moved away from the cliffs
After ten years of discussing the urgency to move Cape Bear Lighthouse, it has happened and the lighthouse is safely away from the steep cliff.
Congratulations to the movers and the local citizens for making this happen.
Here's a photo from the CBC PEI's website - see the link below for more photos...
Congratulations to the movers and the local citizens for making this happen.
Here's a photo from the CBC PEI's website - see the link below for more photos...
Cape Bear Lighthouse is moving today
The front page of The Guardian newspaper this morning tells today is the day Cape Bear Lighthouse is moving to its new location at Murray Head ( approx. distance 7km /4 mi ) - the most south easterly point of the Island.
Here are two photos I took of the lighthouse on August 30, 2013.
Below is a link to the newspaper article.
Here are two photos I took of the lighthouse on August 30, 2013.
Below are photos of the new location.
Saturday, August 2, 2014
Seacow Head Lighthouse hosts successful event.
The following appeared on the Journal-Pioneer website today...
Seacow Head Lighthouse event deemed successful.
by Colin MacLean. August 1, 2014
Above: Journal-Pioneer Photos - "A
group of concerned residents gather around Seacow Head Lighthouse recently to
get a status update on their bid to take over the lighthouse from the
government."
FERNWOOD– Somebody asked Thomas
Sherry recently where he was hiding his ferry.
“There
was just that many cars leaving that it just reminded people of the boat
traffic,” laughed Sherry, sitting on a bench overlooking the Northumberland
Strait.
Sherry is one of the organizers of “We’ll Keep the Light
On,” an event meant to celebrate and contribute to the conservation of the
Seacow Head lighthouse.
The event, which is taking place next to the lighthouse,
has been ongoing since July 25, with more than 20 events bringing in more than
1,600 people as of Friday. Closing ceremonies are scheduled for Monday.
“The week so far has been unbelievable; with the crowds
that we’ve been having, the people that have been showing up to volunteer, with
old friends who haven’t seen one another, some of them in 60, 65 years … It’s
incredible,” said Sherry.
The event, created by the Friends of the Seacow Head
Lighthouse group, has seen the likes of a retirement party of Senator Catherine
Callbeck, art auctions, reunions, a supper featuring Olympian Heather Moyse,
kids days and more.
It’s been a busy week and promises to be a busy weekend,
but it’s been a great event for the community, said Sherry.
Friday was kids day at the lighthouse, and more than 100
children and their guardians came out to enjoy the fun and games.
Tracey Nichol-MacDonald lives in Fernwood with her family
and brought her boys to the lighthouse for the morning.
“It’s a great event for family and friends. I think it’s
brought the community together, showing how strong and close-knit a little
community truly is,” she said.
Saturday’s events include a sunset beach meet and greet
from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and a community picnic and kitchen party starting at 5
p.m. Sunday’s only event is a Sherry family reunion. Monday will see a fun run
start at 9 a.m., a wine and cheese social starting at 6:30 p.m. and an art show
and raffle at 7:30 p.m.
Also see previous post on this blog...
Thursday, January 16, 2014
P.E.I. Lighhouse Society - NOW ONLINE!
http://peilighthousesociety.ca/
===================================================
See recent article in the Journal-Pioneer newspaper -
http://www.journalpioneer.com/News/Local/2014-01-15/article-3577829/Lighthouse-Society-now-online/1
Lighthouse
Society now online
Eric McCarthy
/ Published on January 15, 2014
WEST POINT --
As a well-known historian on Island lighthouses, Carol Livingstone has been called upon to help public school and university students come up with material for class projects.
As a well-known historian on Island lighthouses, Carol Livingstone has been called upon to help public school and university students come up with material for class projects.
Carol Livingstone, left, and Kilmeny Boates leaf
through Livingstone’s large supply of lighthouse photos. They picked from that
collection in selecting photos for the P.E.I. Lighthouse Society’s new website.
Livingstone’s resource service might
soon be in less demand, but not because lighthouses have lost any of their
lure. Now, much of the resource material is available online at the Prince
Edward Island Lighthouse Society’s new website. Livingstone and Kilmeny Boates
got the site up and running just before Christmas.
The site is registered at
four domain names, www.princeedwardislandlighthousesociety.ca or .com and
peilighthousesociety.ca or .com. “It’s worth our investment to nail it
down,” Livingstone said of the identity.
The site contains photos and
information on 63 lighthouse and range light structures spread out along the
Island’s 1,100 kilometers of jagged coastline. The close to 900 photos include
interior and exterior photos of the structures as well as some shots of the
local scenery and historical photos of lightkeepers who maintained the lights
before electricity was installed. Prince Edward Island is believed to have the
highest concentration of lighthouse structures of any province or state in
North America. Approximately 35 of those structures are still listed as active
aids to navigation.
Livingstone, a past president of the
Lighthouse Society, provided most of the photos for the website from what
Boates described as her “mountains and mountains of photos.” She’s been in them
all and knows their history and unique features.
Boates
first became involved in lighthouse research while working on an internship in
2010. “It fast became a passion,” she admits.
Descriptions and dimensions of the
structures, their history, driving directions, special activities and events
that occur on the sites and whether they are publicly or privately owned is
some of the information provided.
Livingstone, the “Lighthouse Lady,”
and Boates will continually add information and photos and are interested in
hearing from anyone who has material to share.
Monday, November 18, 2013
Seacow Head Lighthouse
I was recently out to the Chelton and Fernwood area of the Island - located between Bedeque and Bordon-Carleton.
I went down to the Lighthouse, off Route 119 - my first time in this area. Beautiful!
I went down to the Lighthouse, off Route 119 - my first time in this area. Beautiful!
It comes as a bit of a surprise
to most people that walruses, for which Seacow Head and Seacow Pond are named,
were abundant on Prince Edward Island during the late 19th century.
Seacow Head Lighthouse was built during the summer of
1864 under a contract of 314 pounds by David McFarlane and John Rankin. Besides the cost of constructing the tower,
86 pounds was paid for the land and right-of-way, Malcolm McFarlane was given 30
pounds for clearing the land, Thomas Robinson was paid 85 pounds for the
lantern, and 300 pounds was expended for copper, lamps, glass and materials for
the frame.
The octagonal, heavy-framed lighthouse, 18.3 meters (60
feet) in height and measuring 3.4 meters (11 feet 3 inches) on each side at the
base, originally stood on a stone
foundation and exhibited its light at a focal plan of about 27 meters (88 feet) above the surrounding water. Situated on the coast near the turning point
for reaching Summerside Harbour, the Seacow Lighthouse serves as both a harbour
light and a gulf light.
Malcolm McFarlane served as the first keeper of Seacow
Head Lighthouse starting in 1865. In
1867, after MacFarlane was no longer keeper, two commissioners were appointed
by the House of Assembly of Prince Edward Island to investigate charges against
the former keeper. The commissioners
found that the evidence presented to support a charge that McFarlane had
embezzled public property were so trifling that it would not have been
sustained in a court of law, and thus Keeper McFarlane was cleared.
In 1877, William Mitchell, the agent for the Department
of Marine and Fisheries on Prince Edward Island, visited Seacow Lighthouse with
the General Superintendent of Lighthouses of Canada and had five Sibler’s patent
lamp and burners, with deep reflectors, placed in the lantern room. At that time, the keeper, Peter O’Ronaghan,
was living in the lighthouse, which was very uncomfortable, and Mitchell
encouraged the Department to consider constructing a keeper’s dwelling. Tenders were invited for the construction of
the requested dwelling in 1879, and a construct for the sum of $777 was awarded
to James Barclay of Ellerslie. The new
dwelling was built at the station in 1880.
A new cast-iron lantern was placed atop the tower in 1902
replacing a worn-out, inferior lantern.
The tower was also reshingled, and a new platform deck built. In 1906, the system of lamps and reflectors
was replace by a fourth-order Fresnel lens, supplied by Barbier, Benard &
Turenne, of Paris France. The lens
consisted of two groups of two panels each with each panel sub tendering 90
degrees in the horizontal plane. Every
ten seconds, second flash of 0.638 seconds, and long eclipse of 6.862
seconds. The lens completed one
revolution every twenty seconds, and petroleum vapour burner under a mantle was
used as the illuminant.
Seacow Lighthouse was automated on November 12, 1959, and
the dwelling was sold on March 7, 1960 and removed from the site. The tower was moved back from the eroding
bank in 1979.
Seacow Head Lighthouse appeared in the opening scenes of
many of the episodes of Road to Avonlea,
which was adapted from a few books by Lucy Maude Montgomery, author of Anne of
Green Gables. Seacow Lighthouse was also
the model for Gus Pike’s Lighthouse that appeared in the series. Two mock-ups of the Seacow Lighthouse, one of
which was cut short for scenes that took place at the top of the lighthouse,
were constructed in a field near Uxbridge, Ontario, for use in filming.
When Tom Sheery, who owns the cottage adjacent to the
lighthouse, learned the federal government was divesting Seacow Lighthouse, he
visited his neighbours and obtained enough signatures to file an application for
the structure. “I went around to the
residents of the community to see if there was enough local support, and 99
percent of them signed the petition,” said Sherry. Interested residents formed Friends of Seacow
Lighthouse and submitted a business plan to the government. A public meeting was held at the lighthouse
on July 18, 2013, and nearly the entire community of Fernwood showed up. Though some had questions about liability and
maintenance costs, all were unanimous that the historic lighthouse should be
saved.
Keepers:
Malcolm McFarlane 1865-1867
Thomas P. Huestis 1867-1872
James Wright 1872-1873
Peter (Pat’k) O’Ronaghan 1873-1917
E. O’Ronaghan 1917-1919
Thomas J. Ranahan 1919-1946
Walter Richards 1946-1959
Above information cf.
Below: Image cf. display at West Point Lighthouse.
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Images of 15 Designated P.E.I. Lighthouses
The following images of the recently designated Prince Edward Island Lighthouses comes from Google Images http://www.google.com/imghp:
• Leards Front Range Lighthouse, 2 Russell Street,
Victoria
• Cape Egmont Lighthouse, 161 Phare du Cap Egmont
Road, Cape Egmont
• Blockhouse Lighthouse, 285 Blockhouse Road, Rocky
Point
• Cape Bear Lighthouse, 42 Black Brook Road, Beach
Point
• East Point Lighthouse and Fog Alarm Building, 398
Lighthouse Road, East Point
• Indian Head Lighthouse, 3930 Rte. 112, Lower
Bedeque
• New London Range Lighthouse, 821 Cape Road, Park
Corner
• North Cape Lighthouse, 21831 Rte. 12, Seacow Pond
• North Rustico Lighthouse, 383 Harbourview Drive,
North Rustico
• Panmure Head Lighthouse, 62 Lighthouse Road,
Panmure Island
• Point Prim Lighthouse, 2147 Point Prim Road,
Point Prim
• Seacow Head Lighthouse, 198 Lighthouse Road,
Fernwood
• Wood Islands Lighthouse, 173 Lighthouse Road,
Wood Islands
• Souris Historic Lighthouse, 134 Breakwater St.,
Souris
• West Point Lighthouse, 364 Cedar Dunes Park Rd.,
West Point
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Cape Bear Lighthouse - close to going over cliff!
I was out to Cape Bear in eastern Prince Edward Island last Friday morning. I took the following photos of the historic Cape Bear Lighthouse. It's still there and not yet moved to a safer location.
I prepared site development drawings 11 years ago to relocate the lighthouse to another site and again in 2009, however, for a variety of reasons the lighthouse was never moved. The problem now is the lighthouse is so close to the cliff that construction moving equipment can't safely get in to prepare the move. Possibly they could use a wind turbine crane to lift it away from the cliff and save it from its impending demise.
Will the lighthouse go over the cliff in the spring of 2014?
I prepared site development drawings 11 years ago to relocate the lighthouse to another site and again in 2009, however, for a variety of reasons the lighthouse was never moved. The problem now is the lighthouse is so close to the cliff that construction moving equipment can't safely get in to prepare the move. Possibly they could use a wind turbine crane to lift it away from the cliff and save it from its impending demise.
Will the lighthouse go over the cliff in the spring of 2014?
See post earlier in this blog...
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
PEI Lighthouses Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow - Lecture Augt 19
I was to this lecture last winter at Beaconsfield - it was excellent - they had good information and images!
Join us Monday, August 19 in Montague where Carol Livingstone and Josh Silver will present Lighting the Way: PEI Lighthouses Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, at the Freight Shed on the Montague Waterfront.
Lighthouses have a long history on PEI going back to 1845 when the Island received its first light on land donated by the Earl of Selkirk at Point Prim. Its construction was in response to increasing ship traffic and subsequent merchants’ and ship owners’ pleas to the Colony’s House of Assembly. Since then, many more lighthouses and range lights have been constructed and today, over 50 dot the coastline of our beautiful Island.To celebrate and encourage preservation of these coastal beacons, the Institute for Architectural Studies and Conservation invites you to join them Monday, August 19th at 7.30 pm for an illustrated talk entitled, Lighting the Way: PEI Lighthouses Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, at the Freight Shed on the Montague Waterfront. Carol Livingstone, President, PEI Lighthouse Society and Josh Silver, Red Seal Carpenter and Learning Manager, Heritage Retrofit Carpentry Program, Holland College will explore the history of these iconic forms of coastal architecture and identify their function and architectural features.
Admission is by donation and light refreshments will be served, so please join us and bring a friend for a lovely summer evening on the Montague waterfront. For more information, please visit our website at http://iascpei.wordpress.com/ or call 368-6600.
Above: my photo of the North Rustico Lighthouse
.
Above: my photo of Cape Bear Lighthouse.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Island Lighthouses to be designation
The following article recently appeared on the local CBC website -
Below: Point Prim Lighthouse, built in 1846, is the oldest on PEI (Tourism PEI)Read 7
There are 13 lighthouses about to be designated as Heritage Places by the P.E.I. government.
For more information on Prince Edward Island Lighthouses see -
13 Island lighthouses in line for heritage designation
There are 13 lighthouses about to be designated as Heritage Places by the P.E.I. government.
The Canadian Coast Guard declared the lighthouses surplus in 2010.
Some of these lighthouses are in the process of having ownership transferred from the federal government to various community groups and municipalities.
The Heritage Place designation means owners of the lighthouses will have a legal obligation to protect the integrity of the structures.
"They do have to maintain a certain level of heritage character regarding the look of the building, the way it's used — those sorts of things — more the appearance, the historic appearance. It's very important," said Carol Livingstone, president of the P.E.I. Lighthouse Society.
Livingstone says she's pleased with the list overall.
The Wood Islands Lighthouse, founded in 1876, is the Island's 7th or 8th oldest lighthouse. (Federico Cahis/CBC)
"They have for the most part, done some of the bigger or more significant ones and there are other smaller ones like range lights that are not on this list," Livingstone said.
"I would say they took some of the older or more historically significant ones and did those and then we'll get on to others after that."
Some of the lighthouses on the designated list are Leard's Front Range Lighthouse, East Point Lighthouse and Fog Alarm Building, Point Prim and Wood Islands lighthouses.
Eastern PEI:
Western PEI:
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