PEI Lighthouses

This morning, I was expecting another beautiful sunrise and I was not disappointed. With camera and coffee in hand I sat back and watched as the spectacle unfolded before me. It was nice that there was a slight breeze to keep the mosquitoes away.

Harvest Season

It’s mid-September, all over the Island the harvest is in full swing. I’ve seen corn, pumpkin, squash, apples, soybeans, red beets and many varieties of potatoes being harvested. The locals seem to be very particular with which variety of potato they buy. Across the island there is a lot of activity and scenes of harvested fields.

Lighthouses

If you’re into lighthouses, Princess Edward Island is a must visit location. With over 60 lighthouses on the island, Canada’s smallest province boasts the highest concentration of lighthouses in North America according to the PEI Lighthouse Society.

Apparently, there are visitors that make PEI a destination and make it a point to visit all 63 lighthouses. I set aside a day to visit ten lighthouses which I quickly realized may be a difficult task. The distance between some lighthouses is deceptively long. The islands shoreline is over 1,000 miles long. Not all the lighthouses are situated on easily accessible streets. In fact, one lighthouse I visited, had no sign on the street. Google maps took me to the right place and I could see the lighthouse, but felt like I was driving along a private lane. I was using the Lighthouses of PEI guide from the island’s Lighthouse Society. Note that Google seems to have slightly different names for some of the lighthouses. Persistence is needed in some cases.

Each of the Islands lighthouses has its own light pattern so that ships can determine which light they are seeing. Although many of the island’s lighthouses have been decommissioned some are still operational. At one point the Canadian government owned and operated the lighthouses. As I understand, the lighthouses have all been turned over to the local communities, to promote, maintain and in some case operate.

In the end, it took me 9 hours to visit 12 lighthouses. Some of the better know lighthouses are listed below.

Hazard Point Front Range Lighthouse

The Hazard Point lighthouse is in Borden-Carleton situated beside the 9-mile long Confederation bridge is a wood structure with views across to the main land.

At one time the island railway ran by the lighthouse. There’s a quasi-museum gift shop in front and some of the old rails still exist out front. This is a nice place to have a picnic and watch all the activity on the water.

There’s a much smaller light house about a mile away that was used to guide ships closer to land. This is the Haszard Point Back Range Lighthouse. It can only be viewed from a field nearby because of all the growth around the lighthouse.

Point Prim Lighthouse

This is the island’s oldest lighthouse at Hillsborough Bay. This is a 60 foot tall brick conical tower. It was built in 1845.

Wood Islands Lighthouse

I took the tour of this lighthouse because it seemed to have more interesting history than some of the others. Nearby is the ferry port and I got to watch as the ferry came in, loaded passengers and cars and returned to sea.

The lighthouse was built in 1876 with a square tower. The building is a museum and is run by the local community. Before being automated, the lighthouse keeper and family would live in the light house itself. I could only image a large family living here and the life they must have had. The museum tries to recreate some of this experience.

On one wall, there are four different pictures of NASA astronauts that have visited the lighthouse with various messages about the lighthouse guiding people. I didn’t have a chance to ask why they had visited this specific lighthouse.

Cape Bear Lighthouse

I was beginning to runout of steam when I got to the Cape Bear Lighthouse. I was very happy to see that they offered a selection of Nespresso coffees. This lighthouse was built to help guide the fishery and transportation industry in the late 19th century.

Given all the things I’ve read and heard about the Titanic in the last month, it was interesting to note that the first distress call captured in Canada was received at the Marconi Wireless station in this lighthouse on April 14, 1912. The Marconi Company had installed and operated many radio stations along the coast.

This lighthouse also has an octogonal shape and was build of wood.

John Brown Richmond Street Grill

After ten hours looking at lighthouses on the Easter part of the Island, I was ready to relax.

I was told to try the PEI muscles. I got a recommendation to try The John Brown Grill. I ordered the garlic and wine mussels. The portion was perfect. I also order a small beet salad which was tasty. I was a little disappointed in the beer I ordered. The beer menu didn’t really indicate the type of beer, just the name. I ordered an ale which had very little flavor. The food was excellent, the drink mediocre.

The restaurant is situated beside the performing art center, and a group of musicians came on and played. It was really nice hear live music on the street. All the money they raised would go to promoting young local musicians.