The Nice Things about Light-Keeping: Sid Smith of Cape Sable Lighthouse, Nova Scotia

In 1993, Nova Scotia said goodbye to its last lighthouse keepers. It ended a long and venerable tradition, begun in 1734 when a light fed by sperm oil shone out over the French fortress of Louisbourg. For more than two-and-a-half centuries families tended Nova Scotia's wind and sea-battered lighthouses, but the final three decades of staffed lighthouses were marked by radical changes. Automated equipment replaced the eyes, ears and toil of the lightkeeper and his family. Until the mid-1960s, many aspects of the job had remained unchanged from the earliest days of lightkeeping, as families worked and lived for the service of mariners around the treacherous coastline of Nova Scotia.