|
Cape Sable Lighthouse, the tallest lighthouse in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, on Cape Sable Island in Clarks Harbour has been refurbished and now looks like it did the day it was built.
The painting of the 101 foot concrete tower was paid for by a combination of funds raised by the Friends of Cape Sable Light, a $10,000 donation from GN Thermoforming Equipment, and provincial government funding. It is believed that this is the first major painting of the lighthouse since it was built.
Painting the lighthouse was no easy project. All supplies, equipment, and the painting crew had to be transported to the island and a support staff had to be organized to ferry workmen and supplies back and forth from the island.
The work included washing, patching, priming, and applying the elastomeric coating to the tower, and a steeple jack was needed to paint the structure. The painting project was completed this past October and other restoration, such as fixing the exterior entry stairs, will be done this year.
The Cape Sable Lighthouse is new by lighthouse standards. It was completed in 1924 to replace an earlier lighthouse that had been built in 1861. When the new 101-foot tall tower was completed, the old 65-foot wooden tower was lowered and capped and left standing for repurposing. Sadly, after automation, in 1988 the Canadian Coast Guard burned all the support buildings on the island, including the former tower and the keeper’s house.
The actual painting of the lighthouse was done by the Eastern Infrastructure, and the paint was donated by Wilson’s Home Hardware of Barrington Passage, Nova Scotia. This was not the first lighthouse that Eastern Infrastructure painted. They have previously painted Cape Forchu Lighthouse in Yarmouth and Cape Ray Lighthouse in Newfoundland.
Additionally, Petite Riviere Vineyards created a new red wine called Sable that features a photo of the lighthouse on its label from a photograph taken by Kathy Johnson, whose photos appear with this story. The company donated two cases of the wine to a fund raising event for the lighthouse and will also be donating funds from the sale of the wine to the refurbishing of the historic lighthouse.
Donations for the lighthouse can be sent to Friends of Cape Sable Light, P.O. Box 160, Clarks Harbour, NS, B0W 1P0, Canada.
This story appeared in the
Jan/Feb 2014 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.
All contents copyright © 1995-2024 by Lighthouse Digest®, Inc. No story, photograph, or any other item on this website may be reprinted or reproduced without the express permission of Lighthouse Digest. For contact information, click here.
| 