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On a sunny summer day in 1993, four lighthouse enthusiasts paid a visit to the Sambro Island lighthouse, at the approaches to Halifax Harbour in Nova Scotia. It was an incredible day, with clear blue skies, a soft breeze and a light sea running. The island had been abandoned for five years, after the removal of the final lightkeeping family in the spring of 1988. In contrast to the beautiful day, the two keepers’ houses, engine room, and lighthouse were starting to show major signs of neglect. As the four - Patsy MacDonald, Chris Mills, E.H. “Rip” Irwin, and Graham McBride - gazed up at the massive stone lighthouse, they decided it was time to stop the decline, and create the Nova Scotia Lighthouse Preservation Society (NSLPS). Sambro Island was a fitting place for the birth of the society. Begun in 1758 and completed two years later, the wood-sheathed granite tower is the oldest operating lighthouse in North America.

Registered as a non-profit society in 1994, the NSLPS faced a daunting task from the very beginning. Sambro needed lot of work, as did many other lightstations (there are roughly 150 traditional lighthouses in Nova Scotia) across the province. During the summer of 1993, Nova Scotia’s last staffed lighthouse had been automated, ending a 260 year history of lightkeeping. Neglect and disposal of lighthouse properties were becoming a real issue, and it was time to act.

The society’s first goal was to secure federal heritage protection for the Sambro lighthouse. Thanks to the tireless lobbying efforts of founding president Rip Irwin, Sambro received classified status in 1996, making it one of only two Nova Scotia lighthouses with full heritage protection. In the meantime, Irwin directed a work party of volunteers as they installed a new roof on the island’s historic gashouse, once used for the manufacture of acetylene.

Flash forward to 2008. Sambro celebrates its 250th anniversary this year. Although the Canadian Coast Guard restored the exterior of the historic tower a decade ago, much remains to be done here and at other remote lightstations. Since 2000, the NSLPS has lobbied for a national lighthouse protection act - the goal of such an act is to “designate and preserve historically significant Canadian lighthouses”. Despite wide support from the Canadian senate, the proposed act has been de-railed half a dozen times (it was just one vote short of passing in 2007), as a result of changes in government and concerns over the projected cost of saving our lighthouses. The fight goes on.

In the meantime, the NSLPS continues its grassroots work, assisting community groups around Nova Scotia in acquiring, maintaining and protecting their lighthouses, and educating people about the importance lighthouses in our marine history.

In late 2002 the society received a $50,000 US grant from the J.M. Kaplan Fund of New York, which allowed close to a dozen communities to refurbish their lighthouses. The society has also recorded and transcribed oral histories from former lightkeepers and their families, and maintains a comprehensive website at www.nslps.com. The society publishes a quarterly journal, The Lightkeeper, which includes features, oral history, news of trips and programs, and detailed information about the work local communities are doing to save their lighthouses.

Our programs and trips help garner interest in and support for our lighthouses. Programs include talks by former keepers, historians, and occasional Lights and Horns events, where we light kerosene lamps, blow fog horns and give people a hands-on introduction to what traditional lightkeeping was all about.

Despite a broad-based membership in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K, the NSLPS is always looking for new blood. Efforts to save our lighthouses are often an uphill struggle in the face of bureaucratic red tape and government process. Nonetheless, NSLSP members are proud of their accomplishments over the past 15 years, and we look to a future that shines bright for our guiding lights.

This story appeared in the January 2008 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.

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