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The Cape Bear lighthouse won’t be open to visitors this summer after harsh winter weather and high winds this spring eroded the cliffs the 132-year-old structure sits atop, leaving it perilously close to the edge of a steep bank.
However, a local community group working to save the historic lighthouse is hopeful their efforts will be realized later this summer.
“I’d say we lost about three metres since last fall,” said Dawna MacNeill, who has worked as a greeter and gift shop clerk at the lighthouse since 1999, when it opened to the public.
The aggressive deterioration of the cliffs has prompted an urgency in ensuring the preservation of the popular lighthouse and the Island heritage it embodies.
The lighthouse housed PEI’s first Marconi station, the first radio transmission station in Canada to receive a distress signal from the Titanic on the night it sunk back in 1912.
“A lot of people are very interested in its connection to the Titanic and want to be a part of that history,” Mrs MacNeill said. “Even small children who have seen the movie. They come to visit to get a feel of it.”
Mrs MacNeill said the station also played a key role in shipping that went on between Georgetown, PEI and Pictou, Nova Scotia, especially in winter.
“If boats got trapped in the ice, they would send a transmission to the station and men from the area would help get the passengers out,” she said.
The lighthouse served as a familiar beacon for mariners in the area from the time it was built in 1881 right through to 2011, when it was decommissioned and a light tower was installed in its place.
Despite its decommissioning, Mrs MacNeill wants to ensure the lighthouse’s legacy carries into future generations.
“The lighthouse is a part of the community. It’s part of our heritage,” Mrs MacNeill said, adding that seven families called the lighthouse their home when it required a keeper.
One former resident, an elderly lady, would often return to the lighthouse to relive her childhood and revisit family memories.
“She would come in and the visitors would leave the guide and listen to her stories instead,” Mrs MacNeill said. “People are just so interested in knowing how people lived back then.”
Mrs MacNeill said the lighthouse won’t open this year because the eroding parking lot is simply too dangerous for the public to walk on, or for bus tours that visit throughout the busy tourist season.
“There will be a lot of people disappointed,” she said, adding that visitors have come from as far as Japan and Sweden to tour the lighthouse.
In 2012, more than 1,300 people took a guided tour of the lighthouse, but Mrs MacNeill said that number is much higher for those who come in the off-season, or who don’t partake in the guided tour.
That’s why her group is working hard to make sure the historic landmark stays open to visitors who often do more in the area than just tour the lighthouse.
“(Visitors) will ask where the nearest gas station is, especially after getting off the Wood Islands ferry,” Mrs MacNeill said.
“Then they’ll ask where to get a bite to eat, where to pick up some groceries, where there’s activities for the kids. We act more like a visitor information centre,” she said.
The group working to save the lighthouse is made up of seven members from Cape Bear and surrounding area.
Since last October, they’ve been working collaboratively with government to gain ownership of the lighthouse.
“We’re dealing with the Coast Guard mainly,” Mrs MacNeill said. “And they’ve been great so far. They can only do what government allows them to do, though, so we have to follow the same steps to be able to take over the lighthouse and maintain it ourselves.”
Although Mrs MacNeill said the process has been slow, she’s hopeful the outcome will be positive, especially since the precedent has been set in similar situations.
“They moved the Wood Islands lighthouse a few years back,” she said. And the Cape Bear lighthouse was moved once before, in 1946.
Mrs MacNeill said they hope to move the lighthouse about 200 feet further back from its current location.
“We’re in the process of trying to acquire the land now to move it,” she said, adding that the property owner seems receptive to helping out their cause.
Although Mrs MacNeill said she’s unsure what the total cost to move the lighthouse will be, she said it’s something they are working hard to make happen right away.
“We’d like to get it moved as soon as possible,” she said.
She hopes they’ll be open for next season.
She hopes they’ll be open for next season.
“The lighthouses took care of the community years ago, so now we have to help take care of the lighthouses and preserve them and their history.”
Photo: Property on the Strait side of the Cape Bear lighthouse has eroded so much, the historic site will not be open this summer. Melanie Jackson photo
First appeared in The Eastern Graphic May 29, 2013
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