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Before there were any lighthouses on Georgian Bay, at a few of the tiny villages, a light would be raised up on a pole to guide ships into the harbor. At Point au Baril, the legend goes that the first light was placed inside half a voyageur keg and set out on the point which marked the channel entrance. But in 1855, when the first railroad hit Georgian Bay's shores at Collingwood, the pace quickened almost overnight. The port of Collingwood on southern Georgian Bay became an important transshipment center for goods and immigrants travelling west, and for wheat and lumber heading from the west back to lucrative eastern markets. Lighthouses on Georgian Bay and the North Channel soon followed.
The first four towers were built between 1855 and 1859. Called Imperial Towers, they were beautifully-crafted, tall limestone towers built by the Province of Canada West's Board of Works. There was hardly enough money to complete them, and there were no new towers until a second wave of lighthouse building was undertaken after Confederation of 1867.
The new Dominion had a daunting task: to light thousands of miles of waterways with very few funds. Canada responded to the challenge with admirable innovation, initiative, and drive. Very quickly, inexpensive wooden towers were erected with basic reflectors providing the illumination apparatuses. Surprisingly, these lights were found to be more effective than the elegant stone towers with their expensive optical lenses operated by the Americans. The secret? Canadian-invented coal oil or "kerosene" which shone much brighter and was far less expensive than the lard oil used by the Americans.
Despite the growing number of navigational aids and lighthouses, many more were still needed. What was even more urgent was a proper hydrological survey of the rocks and shoals beneath the water. Throughout the 1870s, ship after ship went down after hitting unmarked shoals. In September 1882, the loss of over 100 lives on the steamer, the Asia, provoked rage in the communities. The government was forced to act. A survey was initiated, and a third wave of lighthouse building undertaken.
Throughout the latter years of the nineteenth-century, designs varied, but the towers continued to be built of wood. The twentieth century introduced new building technologies, including the new construction material of which many architects were skeptical-reinforced concrete. The last tower in the region, and also the tallest at 889 feet, was built of reinforced concrete during the First World War on Great Duck Island. For the rest of the first half of the century, the focus was on the improvement of other navigational aids such as buoys and channel marking.
The second half of the century has been marked by the decline of the lighthouses. Beginning largely in the 1950s, the lighthouse began to be automated and abandoned and eventually destroyed. Lighthouses which still had keepers into the 1980s are in better shape and have more of a chance of survival, if interested groups can organize to ensure their preservation.
The human story of lightkeeping is a rich one. In the United States, several men tended a lighthouse. Keepers were uniformed, well-trained, and well-housed. Not so in Canada. The early keepers were left to their own devices and survival instincts! Early keepers stayed at the remote lights over the winter. One keeper, David McBeath, and his family nearly starved to death at Cove Island when their winter supplies did not arrive. When a boat finally made its way through the ice to Cove Island, the Captain found McBeath about to commit his family to a raft, ready to brave the over thirty icy miles to the closest community. Conditions for keepers slowly improved, but they were never good. Many lights did not have an assistant, as it was tacitly understood that a keeper's wife and children would provide unpaid labor. Wages were very poor and the hours long and hard. Keepers often worked other jobs during the day to make ends meet, and their wives picked up the slack. Seven women became keepers, all of whom took over duties after their husbands died. After both World Wars, lighthouse jobs were set aside for returning war veterans, many of whom had had tuberculosis and needed a job in the open air. Because of their military training, they made excellent, reliable keepers. Apart from the war veterans, many keepers were former fishermen, some were retired sea captains, others were loners who loved the isolation. For some it was just a job. For others - especially during the Depression - it was a very welcome one.
Many families thrived on the life of freedom, while others experienced wrenching feelings of fear and guilt, as parents were separated from their school-age children. Automation, too, was a painful process, as the keepers could see where it was leading. In the final years, keepers acted a caretakers, ensuring that the automated equipment was functioning properly. The end was in sight. It came in 1991, when the last keeper on the Great Lakes was taken off Cove Island.
This story appeared in the
September 1996 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
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