Latest news with #lighthouse
CTV News
an hour ago
- CTV News
30-thousandth visitor to Chantry Island celebrated in Southampton
Marilyn Pope from Acton was the 30,000 visitor to the Chantry Island lighthouse since tours were started by the Marine Heritage Society in 2001-near Southampton-August 13-Scott Miller When Marilyn Pope came from Acton to enjoy a tour of Chantry Island near Southampton on Wednesday, she had no idea she would be making history as the 30,000th visitor to the historical site. 'Surprising. I don't know. Yeah. Totally shocking,' said Pope, after being presented with a token 30,000th visitor ticket by Marine Heritage Society volunteers upon her return to shore. Since 2001, Southampton's Marine Heritage Society volunteers have been taking visitors from across North America to visit Chantry Island and its more than 150-year-old lighthouse. Built in 1859, the Chantry Island lighthouse and lighthouse keeper's home starting falling into disrepair in the 1980s. Chantry Island Chantry Island lighthouse in the early 1900s. (Source: Bruce County Museum and Archives) A group of dedicated volunteers came together in the early 1990s to try and restore the historical structures and bring tours to the national historic site. By the late 1990s, restoration on the lighthouse keeper's began, and by 2001 tours to the island off the coast of Southampton started. '30,000 visitors. It is a big milestone for this organization. And to think it all started with a group of people meeting at the Walker House in the 90s and saying, 'How can we enhance our tourism for Southampton? What can we do?' And they came up with this wonderful idea of rebuilding the keeper's house to keep its cottage on Chantry Island,' said Marine Heritage Society Chair Wayne Kaufman. Chantry Island Chantry Island lighthouse near Southampton on Aug. 13, 2025. (Scott Miller/CTV News London) Kaufman said the entirely volunteer-run tours will continue as long as there are enough local people willing to keep it going, which with 200 volunteers now involved, means Chantry Island Tours are here to stay. 'With the 30,000 visitors that we've taken across over the years, that means that this boat behind us has made over 4,000 trips to that island full of volunteers, and full of paid patrons. So, it is ongoing. It's a great deal amount of work, but we have an enormous amount of fun doing it,' said Kaufman. 'The Marine Heritage Society, they've been doing these tours for years and years now. And it's one of the best things about our community. One of the best things about Southampton is to tour the island and see the lighthouse on the island. Get out there and being able to climb up and look out across the water and back at the shore,' said Town of Saugeen Shores Mayor Luke Charbonneau. Chantry Island Marilyn Pope from Acton was the 30,000 visitor to the Chantry Island lighthouse since tours were started by the Marine Heritage Society in 2001-near Southampton-August 13-Scott Miller As for 30,000th visitor, Marilyn Pope, she's happy to have been a part of history and would recommend the two-hour tours to everyone. 'Oh, it was great. Definitely worth the ride and everything. I was nervous about the stairs up the lighthouse, but I did it,' said Pope. You can learn more about Chantry Island and the tours happening every day, three times a day, mid-June to Sept. 1st by visiting their website.
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Want to own a historic lighthouse? This one in Long Island Sound is up for auction
The U.S. General Services Administration is auctioning off the historic Penfield Reef Lighthouse in Long Island Sound. The lighthouse, built in 1874, includes a 51-foot octagonal tower and a two-story keeper's dwelling, according to a community announcement. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is accessible only by boat. "This is an extraordinary opportunity for historic preservation," Glenn C. Rotondo, Public Buildings Service regional commissioner, said in the announcement. "This auction not only supports GSA's mission of responsible asset management but also provides a rare chance for someone to own an iconic piece of American maritime heritage located in scenic Long Island Sound." The auction requires advanced registration and a $10,000 deposit. Bid increments are set at $10,000. Only registered bidders will be allowed to inspect the property, with the last opportunity to do so at 9 a.m. Aug. 19. The successful bidder will be required to obtain a submerged land lease from the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. Those interested in bidding are strongly urged to read the Invitation for Bids and additional information at The auction, which is scheduled to conclude Aug. 20, employs a rolling closing. If a bid is submitted within 24 hours of the scheduled closing time, the auction will be extended by 24 hours. This process will repeat until no bids are received within a 24-hour window. Auctions will not close on weekends or holidays; the closing time will be postponed to the next business day. The lighthouse will remain an active aid to navigation. The marketing and sales effort is being handled by GSA's Real Property Disposition Division. For more information, visit This story was created by reporter Beth McDermott, bmcdermott1@ with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Journalists were involved in every step of the information gathering, review, editing and publishing process. Learn more at This article originally appeared on The Bulletin: GSA is auctioning off a piece of maritime history in Connecticut Solve the daily Crossword
CBS News
4 days ago
- General
- CBS News
Almanac: First U.S.-built lighthouse
(CBS News) And now a page from our "Sunday Morning" Almanac: March 31st, 1791, 222 years ago today . . . a shining moment in America's nautical history. For that was the day Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton signed the contract for construction of the Cape Henry Lighthouse in Virginia, the first lighthouse to be entirely funded and built by the U.S. government rather than by an individual state. Completed the next year at a cost of $17,700, the original Cape Henry Lighthouse with its fish-oil-fueled lamps guided ships to safety for nearly 90 years, before being replaced by the taller, cast iron lighthouse that stands nearby. Hundreds more federally-built and -operated lighthouses followed over the years, including the biggest of all, the Statue of Liberty which, thanks to its lamp, was officially listed as a lighthouse from its opening in 1886 until 1902. Smaller lighthouses did their bit, too, and many were immortalized by artists, as Edward Hopper did for Cape Cod's Highland Light. But over time, lighthouses . . . and the lighthouse keepers who kept them operating . . . came under threat. The encroaching sea forced the relocation of New England's Block Island lighthouse in 1993 . . . and of North Carolina's towering Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in 1999. But the biggest change in lighthouses came not from nature, but from advancing technology, as our old friend Charles Kuralt reported back in 1987: "Even after electricity came to the lighthouse, somebody still had to be there to keep a watchful eye out for fog. No machine could do that . . . until they developed the fog detector." Thanks to gadgets like that, every U.S. lighthouse has been fully automated since 1998. Today, Boston Light, the successor to America's very first pre-Independence lighthouse, stands alone as the only one still with a Coast Guard Keeper. For more info:
CBC
03-08-2025
- Business
- CBC
Ferryland's lighthouse is shining bright for the first time in 5 years
A shining light on Newfoundland's Avalon Peninsula has fully reopened for the first time in five years, which one business owner says will help the region shine even brighter. The Ferryland Lighthouse has faced several hurdles and partial closures in recent years, closing due to the COVID-19 pandemic and then facing a second long-term closure when the building was severely damaged by Hurricane Larry in 2021. Jill Curran, the owner of Lighthouse Picnics operating out of the lighthouse, said it led to tough questions having to be asked about the future of her business. "We accumulated, unfortunately, a lot of debt trying to work around that," Curran told CBC Radio's The St. John's Morning Show. "It was just so hard, and I'm so appreciative of all the people that stayed with us. Because we continued to operate, but each year we looked different as we figured things out." Now, five years after the start of the pandemic and four years after the hurricane, the lighthouse has been fully reopened and business is back in full swing. "It's Lighthouse Picnics, so the lighthouse is a key ingredient to what we're doing out there," she said. "Five years was a really long time. And there was many times, you know, we just kind of hit roadblock after roadblock. [We] stumbled, and it was just like, 'Is it ever going to happen?' And so it's just been amazing, we've just been so happy with the feedback." Curran said years of work had to go into getting the lighthouse reopened. It still had its original structure from its construction in 1870 at the time of the hurricane, which was pounded by wind and surf to the point where it began to crumble. Heavy structural work had to be completed, which was complicated by large-scale supplies needing to be brought in on a narrow, gravel road. Now the work has been finished, Curran said she's beyond excited to welcome people back to the lighthouse that has been in her family for generations. "It was a real labour of love, and it means the world to me to see it so accepted by visitors and the community," she said. "It just gives me so much hope to see the building open again. Its breathed life into our business again. And so I think our lighthouse, and so many historic buildings around the province, are really a way for us to pay tribute to those that came before us."
The Independent
02-08-2025
- General
- The Independent
122-year-old message in bottle found hidden in wall of Tasmanian lighthouse
A 122-year-old message in a bottle hidden inside a wall has been uncovered from one of Australia 's oldest lighthouses in Tasmania, sparking interest from historians. The rare find was made earlier this week at Cape Bruny Lighthouse in Tasmania by a specialist painter, Brian Burford, during routine conservation work on the lantern room of the heritage-listed lighthouse on Bruny Island. Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service (PWS) said the painter noticed 'something unusual' while treating a badly rusted section of the wall and, on closer inspection, realised it was a glass bottle containing a letter. The bottle was brought to Hobart, where conservators from the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) carefully opened it, cutting through a cork coated in bitumen before extracting the fragile contents. Inside was an envelope with a two-page handwritten letter dated 29 January 1903, written by James Robert Meech, then Inspector of Lighthouses for the Hobart Marine Board. The letter details significant upgrades carried out at the lighthouse, including the installation of a new iron spiral staircase to replace a wooden one, a new concrete floor, and a replacement lantern room. It also records changes to the light's flash sequence, 'three seconds of light followed by nineteen and a half seconds of darkness', replacing a 50-second cycle, and lists the names of the keepers and workers involved in the project. According to PWS, the works cost the Marine Board £2,200, equivalent to around $474,000 AUD today. PWS Manager for Historic Heritage Annita Waghorn said the condition of the message was remarkable. 'You could feel the excitement in the room when the letter came out in one piece,' she said. 'This letter gives us an insight into the works that happened at the lighthouse and the people who undertook this work. This information adds to the rich history of Bruny Island and the Cape Bruny Lighthouse.' TMAG conservators used a humidification process to relax and flatten the old paper for preservation. The letter will eventually go on public display, but the location is yet to be confirmed. The Cape Bruny Lighthouse, first lit in 1838, guided ships through some of Australia 's most treacherous waters for over 150 years before being decommissioned in 1996 and replaced by a nearby solar-powered light. The find has surprised historians, with PWS officials, as no one had accessed the sealed wall space since the lantern room was installed in 1903. Local media described it as 'one of the most significant lighthouse-related discoveries in years', offering a rare time capsule from the state's maritime past.
