Lighthouses find new champion

A P.E.I. man is trying to rally a whole new group of Islanders to preserve the province's lighthouses.

There are about 40 lighthouses on P.E.I. listed as surplus by the Canadian Coast Guard, and that need community groups to step forward to take charge of them in order to have them remain available to the public.

Given the iconic nature of the buildings, said Andrew Lush, it's shocking to think they could be torn down or carted away by a private owner.

"If you look at the tourism website, or any of the tourism brochures, guess what you see everywhere. You see lighthouses," said Lush.

"It's a crime the fact that some of them might be lost."

Lush manages the Hunter-Clyde watershed group, which is dedicated to looking after the river that flows into Rustico Bay. Lighthouses have not been part of the mandate for watershed groups, but when Lush heard the North Rustico Lighthouse, a guide for mariners since 1899, was in jeopardy, he decided to take action.

"Part of our mission statement is to support the local tourism industry," he said.

"Obviously having a lighthouse that's attractive here on the point in North Rustico is kind of under the [purview] of what the watershed group does."

Until recently nothing had been done to save the North Rustico Lighthouse. Lush teamed up with another local not-for-profit group, Friends of the North Shore Community, which started a petition. The group needed 25 signatures to take the lighthouse off the surplus list. It quickly gathered 103. "We had absolutely nobody refuse," said Friends member David Gladstone.

"We found four or five people who said that they had either lived in the lighthouse, or been born in the lighthouse, and that's local history that has got to be preserved."

Encouraged by this success, Lush also sent pleas to other members of the provincial Watershed Alliance to get involved in saving lighthouses, which could bring a whole new sector of volunteers over to the lighthouse cause. The deadline for delivering a petition to save a lighthouse for the community is May 29.

A public meeting will be held on March 27 at the North Rustico Lions Club to discuss the future of maintaining the lighthouse in that community.