Sambro Island Lighthouse Goes Silent
By Sue Clark on Nov 19, 2007 in News 
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One of North America’s oldest working lighthouses has been silenced. Sambro Island Lighthouse, set to celebrate its 250th birthday next year, has had its foghorn disconnected by the Canadian Coast Guard, leaving the area around Halifax, Nova Scotia, without a working foghorn to warn sailors of the dangers around the islands.
According to a story in the Nova Scotia News Chronicle Herald, the Coast Guard will send out an intent to discontinue notice to mariners, giving fishermen and sailors time to comment. But it doesn’t sit very well with residents of Halifax. “We’d like the coast guard to put the foghorn back on,” said Leslie Harnish, president of the Mainland South Heritage Society. “There’s been a foghorn running there since the early 1800s.”
Coast Guard spokeswoman Bev Cleveland said it was determined after consulting mariners that the foghorn is no longer necessary. It also was sounding at times it wasn’t needed, and an electrical cable to the island was also damaged, she said. Rather than repairing the cable, the Coast Guard made the decision to go with solar panels, which will not provide enough power to run the foghorn.
According to the Nova Scotia Lighthouse Preservation Society, which was originally formed by people who met at Sambro Island Light in 1993, the Sambro Lighthouse tower is built of stone sheathed with wood shingles to protect the mortar from deterioration in the salt atmosphere. Originally the tower was white. It was given the three red stripes in 1908, so it would be more visible in snow. The interior granite tower, which rises to a height of 44 feet is the original build of 1758. In Canada, the only light established prior to Sambro Light was that at Louisbourg, which was destroyed when the fortress was taken.
Nova Scotia is one of the foggiest areas in the country, and for many years Sambro was equipped with cannons to answer ship’s signals in fog. Later, a steam fog horn was installed, then bomb rockets, after that acetylene guns, and finally, in 1963, a diaphone.
Rick Howe of the (Halifax) Daily News has written a great commentary on this loss, mentioning that “snooty-snoots” living in downtown Halifax were responsible for shutting off the foghorn at Georges Island two years ago.”Imagine,” he says, “living in a seaport and bitching about a foghorn.” Unfortunately, that attitude prevails everywhere. Peple move next to a farm and complain about the smells and sounds. People buy next to a railroad and complain about the trains running by thir homes.
Although the use of “maritime heritage” may not convince the Coast Guard to rethink their decision, let’s hope that those who use the foghorn will protest enough to keep it working.
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November 29th, 2007 at 9:56 am
This one just about broke my heart… You’re so right, if any part of the world needs to hang onto its lighthouses, it’s here in foggy Atlantic Canada.
Jen / domestika’s last blog post..Moonshine Light
November 29th, 2007 at 10:57 am
Hi Jen,
The thing is, not everyone has radar, which is needed in the foggy North Atlantic. My son is a sternman, and his boss doesn’t have radar.
Fog horns and bells still save lives. We had a recent case down here in Maine where a small boat capsized after being caught in the fog and they made it to a local island where there was a foghorn to guide them in.
December 15th, 2007 at 9:43 am
[…] of North America’s oldest operating lighthouses, Sambro Island was recently in the news for its deteriorating condition and the silencing of its foghorn by the Coast Guard. Situated on […]