Nova Scotia

In the mid 18th century Halifax, Nova Scotia was a major base for the British navy in North America. The port was large, deep and ice-free, a perfect location for a large fleet. The drawback was a number of shoals that extended out about two miles from the harbor entrance and the fact that the entrance was often shrouded by fog. Also quarding the entrance was Sambro Island. Although Halifax was founded in 1749, no lighthouse marked the vicinity until 1758.

As a boy growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, I had only a portion of the Great Lakes to provide a sample of the far more vast waters that cover two thirds of the planet. It was reading about the sea, about seamen and ships and the legends that made their lives sparkle which first captivated me. My attention turned to lighthouses as well when I learned that one of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World was a lighthouse, a 40-story marvel known as the Pharos of Alexandria, construction of which began in 290 B.C.

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.

Cross Island, one of the many islands which dot the southwest coast of Nova Scotia, is located at the entrance to the fishing village of Lunenburg and about 60 miles southwest of Halifax, the capital of Nova Scotia. Historically Lunenburg has been a prosperous fishing village. Its protected harbor is home to a fleet of lobster boats, draggers and long liners. At the turn of the twentieth century a large number of schooners sailed out of Lunenburg to fish cod off the Nova Scotia coast.