Save crumbling Devils Island lighthouse, supporters urge
Last Updated: Monday, April 20, 2009 | 10:48 AM AT
CBC News
About 3,200 people have signed a petition urging the federal government to save the lighthouse. (Pam Berman/CBC)The federal government is being urged to preserve a 132-year-old lighthouse on Devils Island, at the eastern tip of Halifax harbour.
The octagonal wooden lighthouse on a wind-swept, rocky outcropping has seen better days.
"The water is slowly getting in to the top of the lighthouse. It would definitely have to be reshingled and you have to make the roof tight," said Mike Tilley, chairman of the Devils Island Lighthouse Preservation Society.
"I don't want to see it — and a lot of people don't want to see it — fall to the ground."
Tilley estimates he has made the 20-minute boat ride from Eastern Passage to Devils Island more than 100 times over the years.
Like many people in the area, his family has ties to the island. A grandfather, Harold Naugle, was born and raised there.
Tilley said the lighthouse deserves to be restored.
"There's only six or seven octagonal timber-framed lighthouses left," he said.
The Canadian Coast Guard recently removed the light from the structure, but Tilley wants it replaced so the lighthouse can be considered for a federal program scheduled to take effect next year.
About 3,200 people in Eastern Passage have signed a petition urging the federal government to save the lighthouse.
