The phenomenal commercial expansion of the Dominion of Canada, which has brought about an amazing development in the maritime traffic with that country on both its seaboards, naturally has been responsible for the display of striking activity in the provision of aids to navigation. Both the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines bristle with dangers of a most terrible nature; the innumerable islands and precipitous flanks of rock recall the wild ruggedness of the western coast of Scotland or the forbidding Atlantic shoreline of France and Spain.

When the ships of Britain first traded with Canadian shores, shipwrecks and ocean tragedies were numerous; there is no escape for a ship which is caught on those pitiless coasts. The early settlers, therefore, did not hesitate to provide ways and means of guiding navigators to safety. Their first lights were primitive, comprising bonfires fed with wood, of which ample supplies abounded, pitched on prominent headlands; and these flickering rays, when not obscured by smoke and fog, served to speed the ship safely on her way.

The British pioneers, naturally, did not hesitate to improve upon these uncertain crude methods of warning, in course of time, by the erection of more substantial lights. These for the most part comprised timber-frame dwellings, used by the family entrusted with the maintenance of the light, from the roof of which a wooden tower extended, similar in design to the buildings favoured for a similar purpose in the United States. Many lights of this class are still doing faithful service to-day, and although one might anticipate the destruction of such a beacon from fire, yet, owing to the unremitting care displayed by the families associated with the upkeep thereof, this awful fiend has not been responsible for the temporary extinction of many lights in the country’s history.

One of the oldest, if not the first light to be established, was that on Sambro Island, to indicate the entrance into Halifax Harbour, Nova Scotia. This signpost of the sea was set up in 1758, and fulfilled its purpose for 148 years, when it was reconstructed and fitted with the most up-to-date appliances. The white flash now bursts forth, at an elevation of 140 feet above mean high-water, from the top of a white octagonal stone and concrete tower, and is visible from a distance of seventeen miles. When it is blotted out by fog, a powerful signal is given once every ten minutes by a cotton-powder charge. Mariners, however, are cautioned against attempting to make Sambro in fog, as the shore is wild and cruel. This explosive signal is emitted rather to communicate a timely warning to vessels which have lost their way.

The two most dangerous spots in the approach to Canada, however, lie off the mainland. One is the irregular triangular island of Newfoundland; the other is a low-lying stretch of sand known as Sable Island. Both are amongst the most ill-famed graveyards in the North Atlantic, where hundreds of ships have gone to their doom. Even to-day, although both are well protected by lights, wrecks are by no means uncommon. Sable Island is stalked by the ghosts of scores of seafarers who have been the victims of some ghastly ocean tragedy upon its banks.

The island of Newfoundland lies in the jaw of the River St. Lawrence, with two narrow passages leading between the Gulf behind and the broad Atlantic. Both straits offer dangers to navigation, although in this respect that of Belle Ile, whereby the northern corner of the island is rounded, is the worse offender. Yet the most dangerous corner of the island is, not where the waterways are hemmed in, but that tongue which thrusts itself far out to sea, to terminate in the bluff headland of Cape Race. This shoreline is as serrated as a fine saw, being a succession of indentations and steep promontories, with submerged reefs running far out to sea. To the south lies that great submerged tableland, invariably curtained in fog, where mighty icebergs that have come down from the north pound and grate themselves to pieces, which throughout the shipping world is regarded with dread—the Grand Banks. This south-eastward corner of the island, by being thrust so far outwards, brings the rocky headlands into the path of the vessels plying between Europe, Canada, and New York.

The shortest route between the Old and New World extends across the northern half of the Banks, with a slight swing southwards to avoid Cape Race. So far as the great liners are concerned, they are spared this peril, inasmuch as their prescribed lanes give the cruel coast a wide berth; but all other shipping has either to swing round the headland to enter the Gulf of St. Lawrence, or strike farther north and pass through the Strait of Belle Ile. The latter route, however, is available for only five months in the year; the greater volume of the traffic skirts the southern shores of the island.

Under these circumstances Cape Race is to the western side of the Atlantic what the Fastnet and Bishop Rocks are to the eastern boundaries of this ocean. Even if the wild character of the coast were not sufficient justification for a light, the currents experienced off these shores, which are of high velocity and violently broken up by the indentations and protuberances, would demand the provision of a beacon. Over one hundred vessels of all descriptions have been smashed to pieces in the vicinity of Cape Race alone. The Allan liner Anglo-Saxon crashed into the cliffs and went down in 1864 with 290 souls. In this instance the death-roll would have been far heavier had it not been for the pluck and grit of the lighthouse-keepers, who, observing the wreck, hurried to the water’s edge, lowered themselves with ropes from the heights above, and, stumbling, groping, and feeling their way through the darkness, at imminent risk to their own limbs and lives, rescued 130 of the luckless passengers and crew from the wreck, who were huddled on a ledge under the cliffs, hungry, shivering with cold, and too exhausted to assist themselves. The light-keepers and men from the telegraph-station had to lift these helpless survivors one by one to the top of the precipice, a task demanding herculean effort, patience, and intrepidity, and to lead and help them to the lighthouse, where they were tended until a steamer, answering the telegraphic call for help, came round from St. John’s and took the hapless people off.

In 1901 the Assyrian ran ashore in calm weather, and was too firmly jammed on a reef to extricate herself. A week later another fine vessel and cargo worth £80,000, or $400,000, was battered to pulp by the waves, the lighthouse-keepers once more, at great risk to themselves, putting out and rescuing those on board in the nick of time. Ere the excitement of this wreck had died down, a French emigrant steamer, the Lusitania, ran full-tilt on to a reef, and but for the timely aid rendered by the lighthouse-keepers and the fisherfolk 550 people would have been drowned. More fearful catastrophes have been enacted within hail of the lights at Cape Race and Cape Ray, hard by to the west, and more millions sterling of cargo and ship have been shattered and lost here than upon any other corresponding stretch of coast in the world. The most noticeable point in connection with these disasters is the large number of big boats which have ended their careers abruptly off this spot, although the rocks have claimed a big share of small fry as well.

The first beacon was placed on the headland in 1856. It was a cylindrical tower, built up of cast-iron plates, erected near the edge of the cliff, which is 87 feet high. The tower itself being 38 feet in height, the focal plane of the beam was at an elevation of 125 feet above the sea. It was erected jointly by the British and Newfoundland Government authorities, although the maintenance thereof was entrusted to Great Britain. In return for the provision of this warning, a tax of one-sixteenth of a penny, or an eighth of a cent, per ton, was collected in England from vessels passing the light. The beacon was not particularly powerful, the ray being only of some 6,000 candle-power. Some years ago the lighthouse was handed over to the Canadian Government to be included in its service, together with the balance of the fund which had accrued from the levy of the special tax. This sum represented £20,579, or $102,895. The Canadian Government abolished the light-due, and the surplus funds were absorbed into the general revenue of the country.

The new owners, realizing the importance of the light, subsequently decided to provide a new beacon of greater power to meet the demands of shipping, which had increased amazingly. In 1907 this structure was completed. It is a cylindrical tower, carried out in reinforced concrete, 100 feet in height, surmounted by a lantern of the first order with hyperradial apparatus. This is the largest type of optical apparatus in use at the present time, and the ray of light produced by an incandescent oil-burner and mantle is of 1,100,000 candle-power, shed from an elevation of 195 feet above the water. The warning flash of a quarter of a second every seven and a half seconds is visible from a distance of nineteen miles. In addition, the fog-signalling apparatus was brought up to date. The steam-whistle, which had sufficed up to the date of reconstruction, was replaced by a diaphone of the greatest power installed up to that time. This is set up about 250 feet south of the lighthouse, with which it is connected by a covered passage. The air required to emit the warning blast, lasting three and a half seconds once in every half-minute, is compressed by the aid of steam. By day the lighthouse is readily distinguishable from its red and white vertical stripes, red lantern, and white dwelling with red roof, in which the keepers have their quarters. To-day the station ranks as one of the finest in the world, complying in every respect with the requisitions for one of a first-class character.

Sable Island is perhaps an even more evil spot in the North Atlantic than the ill-famed Newfoundland coast. It is a bleak, inhospitable, crescent-shaped collection of sand-dunes, eighty-five miles due east of Nova Scotia and lying right in the steamship tracks. A more uninviting stretch of dry land could not be conceived. Little grows here beyond a special kind of brush, which appears to flourish in sea-swept billows of sand. But the obstacle is formidable, being twenty-two miles in length by a mile in width at its broadest part. This does not constitute the extent of its dangers—far from it. The island is slowly but surely being swallowed up by the restless, hissing sea, with the result that, when one stands on the almost indistinguishable line where sea meets land, an aspect of white ruffs of foam curl in all directions as far as the eye can see, where the surf is thundering over the shoals. I have related the toll that this island of the dead has exacted from shipping,A and now confine myself to describing the means that have been provided to warn the mariner off its bars. The Canadian Government maintains two lighthouses, at the western and eastern extremities respectively, and those entrusted with their safe-keeping have as lonely an existence as may be conceived. The welcome face of a stranger never brightens their lives, except when the relief-boat draws in as far as it dares in the calmest weather, or when some luckless wretches are snatched from a vessel which has fallen into the toils of the sand and is doomed. The sea-birds and seals are their sole companions on this lonely outpost.

The necessity of indicating this death-trap to the mariner was realized at the end of the seventeenth century, but it was not until 1802 that a forward step was taken to ease the plight of those who were thrown upon its shores. Then the province of Nova Scotia voted a sum of £400 or $2,000, per annum, for the maintenance of a fully-equipped life-saving station. This sum was too slender to fulfil the purposes conceived, but in 1827 the Imperial Government, recognizing the humane character of the enterprise, voted a similar appropriation, which is paid regularly, or was up to a few years ago, towards its support. When the Dominion of Canada became an accomplished fact in 1867, by the confederation of the provinces, the matter was taken up whole-heartedly, and since that date enormous sums have been expended upon the island for the protection of shipping and the mitigation of the sufferings of those cast upon its inhospitable shores. At the present time three life-saving stations and six relief stations, equipped with the best modern apparatuses, are maintained, connected by telephone and equipped with a staff of about twenty men. When the gales are raging and the island is encircled in a broad band of maddened spray stretching to the horizon, these men are out patrolling the shore, ready to man the lifeboat upon the first signals of distress. The life of these lonely workers now is lightened very appreciably, as the island is fitted with a wireless station, wherewith the men are able to talk through space with the mainland and with passing vessels.

The west end light has passed through many vicissitudes, and the keepers have experienced innumerable thrills. At this point the ocean is devouring the island rapidly. In 1873 the tower was raised in what was considered a safe position. It was placed some distance from the water’s edge on a favourable knoll, and thought to be immune from the gnawing of the sea for many years to come. But Nature disposed otherwise. The awful winter of 1881 played havoc with the island. One mighty gale carried away a solid chunk 70 feet wide by nearly 1,400 feet long. When the summer came, and an inspection was made, fears were entertained concerning the safety of the lighthouse. The keepers had observed violent tremblings, for the tower vibrated considerably under the smashing blows of the waves. Nothing could be done that summer, and it was hoped that the succeeding winter would be milder, to enable plans to be prepared for the construction of a new tower in a safer position. The keepers, however, were urged to keep a sharp eye on developments, and to be prepared for any emergency. The winter of 1882 proved to be worse than that of the previous year, and the island suffered more than ever. The keepers and their isolated comrades viewed the advance of the waves with ill-disguised alarm. Would the island around the light hold out until the spring? That was the uppermost thought. Every gale brought the waves nearer, and at last it was recognized that one good gale would finish matters. So the men prepared for the emergency. The demolition of the tower commenced, a race between the waters and human labour. The men worked well and had just got the superstructure away, when there was a creak, a groan, and a crash! The foundations, which had been undermined, disappeared into the Atlantic. In less than ten years the hungry ocean had carried a mile of Sable Island away.

In 1888 the present magnificent lighthouse was brought into service. It is a ferro-concrete tower of octagonal shape rising from a massive plinth of the same form, and is provided with four equidistantly-spaced wing buttresses to hold the structure more rigid in rough weather. The building is set on a knoll rising 20 feet above the water, and about 2,100 yards east of the extremity of the western dry spit of land, so that the Atlantic will have to gnaw a considerable distance before it will render the position of this light untenable. The tower is 97 feet in height, bringing the white ray 118 feet above the level of the sea. The light is of the group revolving type, thrown once every three minutes. The warning is made up of three flashes, with an eclipse of thirty seconds between each flash, followed by darkness for ninety seconds, and may be seen sixteen miles away. While the beacon mounts guard over the main end of the island on one side, there is a dangerous submerged bar which runs north-westwards and westwards for seventeen miles. The light at the east end, which was erected in 1873, is likewise carried on an octagonal tower 81 feet high, but, being set upon a more commanding position, the beam is elevated to 123 feet. It is erected five miles south-westwards of the extreme tip of the island, and gives a white flash at intervals of three seconds, followed by an eclipse of fifteen seconds; it may be picked up seventeen miles away. Similarly, this light mounts guard over a submerged sand-bar, which extends eastwards for at least fourteen miles.

During the late summer and autumn the majority of the vessels plying between ports on the St. Lawrence and Europe take the shorter route round the northern corner of Newfoundland through the Straits of Belle Ile. This is a highly dangerous passage, inasmuch as the narrow streak of water, seventy miles in length, with a maximum width of eleven miles, separating the frowning coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador, is strewn with menaces, the most formidable of which is Belle Ile, which lies right in the centre of the entrance from the ocean. The island is really a lofty hump of rock, twenty-one miles in circumference, with the shores for the most part dropping precipitously into the water. It is an extremely lonely spot, and, naturally, is feared by the mariner. His apprehensions, however, have been considerably relieved, because the channel is brilliantly lighted by several powerful lights visible from twelve to twenty-eight miles, while another is being established.

The beacons are distributed along the shores of Newfoundland, Belle Ile, and Labrador, one powerful light being placed on Cape Bauld, the northernmost point of Newfoundland, and another on Cape Norman, another promontory to the west. These two lights are visible from twenty and sixteen miles respectively, while on the opposite side of the strait is Amour Point light, guarding the south-east side of Forteau Bay on the Labrador shore, which has a range of eighteen miles. Cape Bauld is the most important mainland beacon, inasmuch as it indicates the entrance to the Belle Ile Straits. Belle Ile is well protected at its two extreme tips, the principal light being at the southern end. The necessity of guiding ships between the island and Newfoundland was recognized half a century ago, for this light was erected in 1858. It is perched on the summit of the cliff, 400 feet above the sea, the occulting light of ten seconds’ duration and five seconds’ eclipse being thrown from an altitude of 470 feet, rendering it distinguishable twenty-eight miles away. Unfortunately, however, the extreme elevation of the light often causes it to be enshrouded in impenetrable banks of clouds, which drape the headland; so in 1880 an auxiliary light was established, 346 feet below the upper light. This beam is similar in character to the one above, and, from its elevation of 124 feet above the water, it may be picked up from seventeen miles out. Consequently, in foggy weather the lower light may be seen when the upper beacon is obscured. This is one of the most important points on the coast, being a marine telegraph, signal, and ice-report station, while it is also fitted with wireless telegraphy. An interesting feature in connection with this light is that it was kept going for three generations by one family, the Coltons, whose name is legendary in Quebec, and some of whom were born and died on Belle Ile.

The second light, on the northern extremity of the island, to indicate the northern entrance into the straits, is of recent date, having been brought into operation in 1905. It is a tower of iron, encased in a white octagonal reinforced concrete covering capped with a red polygonal-shaped lantern throwing a flash of half a second once every eleven seconds from a height of 137 feet, visible from a distance of seventeen miles.

Fogs and mists are two great perils peculiar to this northern waterway, so the splendid lighting arrangements are supported by excellent and powerful fog-signals. The northern light has a diaphone giving a blare lasting three and a half seconds every minute, while the southern station has a siren giving a double tone. First there is a low note of two and a half seconds followed by silence for two and a half seconds; then a high note of two and a half seconds and a silent interval of 112½ seconds. This signal is emitted from a point midway between the upper and lower lights, the air for the blast being compressed by water-power. Another humane provision is the depot at the southern station, which is kept stocked with food supplies for the benefit of shipwrecked mariners. In 1898 a freighter carrying a deck-load of 400 oxen went ashore beneath this light and became a hopeless wreck. The crew, realizing the impossibility of saving the animals, fired the ship, so that the animals were suffocated and bruised, thereby sparing the inhabitants of the island a deadly risk, and solving the difficult problem which otherwise would have arisen, had the brutes been drowned in the ordinary way and their decomposing carcasses cast up on the beach. In the following year the Dominion liner Scotsman crashed on to the rocks near the same spot, and likewise became a total loss, with a death-roll of nine. By dint of great effort the survivors scrambled ashore, and had a weary trudge of nine miles over a broken, rock-strewn wilderness to gain the lighthouse station and assistance, arriving in a famished and exhausted condition, to be tended by the light-keepers and their families.

Belle Ile is a lonely station in the fullest sense of the word, although the keepers are better off now than they were a few years ago. The straits are busy in the summer, being crowded with shipping, but with the coming of November all life disappears, and the liners do not return until the following May or June. The rock is cut off from the mainland by the masses of ice which pile up in the estuary, together with the crowds of icebergs which come down from Greenland. For six months the guardians of the light are isolated from the world at large, although they have a slender link of communication in the submarine cable. But the storms and stress of winter often rupture this line, and, as the wireless installation is closed down when navigation ceases, the keepers and their families settle down to a silent, weary vigil, knowing nothing of the rest of the world, and all but forgotten by civilization, because an interruption in the cable cannot be repaired until the ice disappears.

Even when the Gulf of the St. Lawrence is entered, the navigator is not free from peril. The waterway is littered with rocks and islands. Among these are Coffin Island and Anticosti, the latter being the private property of M. Henri MÉnier, the French chocolate magnate. For many years the St. Lawrence was a byword to navigation, and wrecks were numerous. It was shunned by navigators and abhorred by underwriters. Even to this day the latter regard it askance, and the insurance rates are high upon vessels trading in these waters. Through the efforts of the Department of Marine and Fisheries, the Dominion Government is removing this stigma from their great marine avenue, and their engineer-in-chief. Lieutenant-Colonel William P. Anderson, to whom I am indebted for much information concerning the guardians of the Canadian coasts, has displayed commendable enterprise and ingenuity in combating the natural odds pitted against human endeavour to render the coasts of the country more friendly to navigation.

In the St. Lawrence the great foe is ice. Its onslaughts are terrific, and none but the strongest works has a chance to survive the enormous pressure exerted when the ice is on the run after the break of winter. As is well known, for some five months in the year the river is frozen so thick and solid that it will support a train. Naturally, when this armour collapses, and the floes are hurled seawards by the current, they concentrate their destructive energies upon any obstacles in their way, piling up in huge masses weighing thousands of tons. It is no uncommon circumstance for the floes to pack in a jagged heap 50 feet high, while all the time there is a continual push against the obstruction.

Under these circumstances extreme ingenuity has to be displayed in the erection of the fixed lights. The floating lights, such as buoys, escape this peril, as they are picked up when navigation ceases, to be housed in quarters on dry land, and replaced when the river is open once more. Yet it is not only the ice in itself which causes trouble. The level of the river rises when the ice is running, and this pressure alone is enormous, while the scouring action about the foundations is terrific. The type of structure adopted varies with the situation and character of the light. The beacons for the aid of navigation, in common with the practice upon American waterways, are divided into groups or ranges, and the captain picks out his channel by keeping these lights and marks in various lines. Maybe four or five lights have to be brought into line, and accordingly the height of the unit of each range varies from its fellow. Thus, the front light will be low, that behind a little higher, and so on, until the last light in the group, or “back light” of the range, as it is called, is a lofty structure.

In some places the light is placed in mid-stream, and perhaps mounted upon a massive, high, steel caisson, resting upon a concrete foundation, thereby proving immovable to the most powerful of ice-shoves. Or a large pier carried out in ferro-concrete and pyramidal in shape is used. In the case of the back light there is a skeleton tower, which structure is employed to gain the necessary height. This is carried upon a high, huge, solid plinth of concrete, even if built against the bank. The frazil ice dams the channel, causing the water to rise, and unless the foregoing precautions were adopted widespread damage would result. All the lights between the gulf and Montreal have to be protected in this manner, so that it will be seen that the adequate lighting of this waterway bristles with engineering difficulties of no light character, and is expensive.

The Canadian Government also is responsible, to a certain extent, for the lighting of the Great Lakes, which is described in another chapter, where similar difficulties prevail. It has also a long stretch of the most rugged part of the Pacific coast to patrol, aggregating about 600 miles between Victoria and Vancouver to the Portland Canal, where Canadian meets Alaskan territory. This is a wicked coast, broken and battered, as well as flanked by an outer barrier of islands, recalling the Scandinavian Peninsula in its general topographical characteristics. During the past few years the necessity of lighting this seaboard adequately has become more pronounced, owing to the creation of the new port of Prince Rupert, a few miles below Alaskan territory, where the Grand Trunk Pacific reaches down to the western sea, and the growing sea-borne traffic with Alaska. The fact that a large portion of this navigation is maintained through the inside passages, bristling with sharp turns, narrow defiles, and jagged headlands, which for the most part are wrapped generally in fog, renders the lighting problem more intricate. Probably the most important light, and certainly the loftiest on the Pacific seacoast north of the Equator, is that on the summit of Triangle Island, British Columbia. It was built in 1910, and although the lantern itself is only 46 feet in height, the elevation of the headland brings the white group-flashing light of 1,000,000 candle-power 700 feet above the sea, giving it a range of thirty-four miles. Four flashes are emitted during each ten seconds, each flash lasting 0·28 second with intervening eclipses each of 1·28 seconds, with an eclipse between each group of 5·94 seconds.

Lieutenant-Colonel Anderson has introduced a new type of reinforced concrete lighthouse with flying buttresses. The latter are not required for strength, but are utilized to give greater stiffness to the tower, as a column 100 feet or more in height, no matter how strongly it may be built, must vibrate and swing in high winds. Yet it is desirable to keep the lantern as steady as possible, and this is achieved much more completely upon the above principle. The engineer-in-chief of the lighthouse authority of the Canadian Government considers this method of construction to be the last word in lighthouse building, and has completed some notable works upon these lines. Perhaps the most important is the Estevan Point light, on the west coast of Vancouver, at a place known as Hole-in-the-Wall. The tower, of octagonal, tapering form, is 127 feet in height, and throws a white group-flashing light, comprising three flashes each of 9·3 seconds with two eclipses, each of 1·37 seconds, and a final eclipse of 6·36 seconds between each group, seventeen miles out to sea. The surroundings of this station are most romantic. Landing anywhere in its vicinity is extremely difficult and dangerous, and the engineer had to select a point about two miles distant for this purpose. From this place a road and tramway have been laid through a grand primeval forest, such as is to be found only upon Vancouver Island, wherein roams a drove of magnificent wild cattle.

While the Canadian coast cannot point to any lighthouse work comparing with the Eddystone, Skerryvore, or Heaux de BrÉhat, yet its most powerful beacons are of a commanding character, representing as they do the latest and best in connection with coast lighting. There is an enormous stretch of difficult shore to patrol, along which has to be guided an immense volume of valuable shipping. In addition to the attended lights, the Government has been extremely enterprising in the adoption of unattended beacons (described in another chapter), miles of lonely, inhospitable shore being guarded in this way. Although the development in this direction is of comparatively recent date, the protection of maritime trade is being carried out in accordance with a comprehensive policy, so that within a few years the coasts of the Dominion will be rendered as safe to the shipping of the world as human ingenuity can contrive.