It takes a village: Volunteers rally to save one of Brier Island’s historical lighthouses

At the southern entrance to the Bay of Fundy’s Grand Passage is a rocky piece of land called Peter Island and a deteriorating lighthouse covered in lichen and bird poop that a group of Digby County volunteers won’t allow to be forgotten.

The uninhabited land sits in the so-called graveyard of the Fundy — nicknamed for its treacherous tidal currents and thick fog — and locals who live on the neighbouring islands fear a key feature of the century-old lighthouse won’t survive the next big storm to hit western Nova Scotia.

“I think perhaps it’s the heritage and the history that we have to cling to because they are important,” says Patricia Moore, a longtime resident of Westport, a village of fewer than 200 people on Brier Island. “We can’t, as a country, let our heritage go.”

Moore is the co-chair of Save an Island Lighthouse, whose volunteers have been fundraising and advocating for the refurbishment of Peter Island Lighthouse, a wooden, octagonal lighthouse built in 1909.

The group was formed in 2015 with a mission to preserve and restore the tower in addition to the Brier Island and Grand Passage lighthouses.

It was designated as the overseer of the three structures after the Municipality of Digby acquired ownership of the trio from the federal government in 2022-23.

Each lighthouse has been recognized under the Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act, which is meant to protect the character of lighthouses that have “significant heritage value” and ensure they are “reasonably maintained,” according to Parks Canada.

“Everybody here has fond memories of all three of the lighthouses for different reasons,” says Moore.

While the Peter Island Lighthouse, with its weathered cedar shingles and red-painted lantern room, is a landmark to anyone navigating the passage, the beacon faded a decade ago and wasn’t replaced.

The lighthouse was subsequently decommissioned, and now a small skeletal tower flashes a green light to guide seafarers away from its shores in the channel between Brier and Long islands.

A wave of problems

During ferry crossings from Freeport to Westport, Moore says passengers can frequently be heard asking, “Why don’t they paint that lighthouse?”

Because it’s covered with lichen, answers Moore. It’s embedded in the shingles. Part of the restoration project will be to remove those shingles and uncover the condition of the wood to see what repairs are needed.

But there’s a more pressing matter to attend to: the lantern. After hiring a structural engineer to assess the lighthouse, it was revealed the lantern may not withstand hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, says Moore.

“We’ve got about three or four issues going at the same time,” she says. “It’s like a vicious circle, and we’re trying to bring all the different aspects of it together so we can really get some serious attention to this lighthouse and get it repaired.”

Mike McKinnell, a volunteer with the group, says they would like to start repairing the lantern this summer so it doesn’t fall off.

“It’s really preserving the lantern that is the effort and then in subsequent years, we would move on to the woodwork and the outer restoration — the cosmetics, if you will,” he says.

Save an Island Lighthouse has raised over $20,000 since it was formed. The Municipality of Digby received $225,000 from the federal government to help preserve all three lighthouses when they took ownership.

Once the Peter Island Lighthouse project is in place, the group will approach the municipality with their plan. The hope is that the group and the municipality will each pay a third of the cost. The rest will be paid from other funding sources such as grants.

Peter Island is a bird habitat owned by the Nova Scotia Nature Trust, which initially didn’t want Save an Island Lighthouse to do any construction work during nesting season. This year, the volunteer group received approval from the Canadian Wildlife Service, with restrictions that they don’t disturb the bird population, which includes hundreds of gulls and cormorants.

Yet one more hurdle remains: securing a contractor. 

“We have the engineer’s report. We know what we have to do,” says McKinnell. “The only reason that we can’t do it is we don’t have a boat for transportation of personnel and material, and we don’t have a contractor willing to take on the job yet.”

Save an Island Lighthouse can’t get a quote from a contractor without knowing how to transfer supplies. They have to secure a vessel that is available 24/7 in case of emergency.

It’s roughly a five-minute speedboat ride from Westport to Peter Island, where the shore is rugged and difficult to land a boat. Rip currents and tides must be factored in when planning the restoration. But with the go-ahead from the Canadian Wildlife Service, the group is hopeful a contractor will step up.

“I’m quite confident that we will get there,” says McKinnell.