Balache Point Lighthouse also known as Balache Point Range Rear Lighthouse is an active
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
lighthouse
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways.
Lighthouses mar ...
located next to the
Canso Canal
The Canso Canal is a short canal located in Nova Scotia, Canada.
Canal location
The Canso Canal is in the Strait of Canso, on the eastern side of the Canso Causeway, a rock-fill causeway which opened in 1955 to carry a 2-lane highway and a singl ...
, near
Port Hastings
Port Hastings is a unincorporated settlement on Cape Breton Island, within the Municipality of the County of Inverness, Canada. The population in 2021 was 90.
The community is located at the eastern end of the Canso Causeway on Cape Breton Isla ...
,
Inverness County, Nova Scotia
Inverness County is an historical county and census division of Nova Scotia, Canada. Local government is provided by the Municipality of the County of Inverness, the town of Port Hawkesbury and the Whycocomagh 2 Waycobah First Nation reserve.
...
. The
salt shaker
Salt and pepper shakers or salt and pepper pots, of which the first item is normally called a salt cellar in British English, are condiment dispensers used in Western culture that are designed to allow diners to distribute grains of edible salt ...
style light, which sits on a small hillock on the Cape Breton side of the canal, is the second lighthouse to be built on the site.
History
The first lighthouse at Balache point was built in 1905, it displayed a fixed white light from a wooden tower. A fog horn was added in 1908, and it housed a 5th order lens from 1922 to 1941. The light was decommissioned in the 1950s.
Lighthouse keeper
A lighthouse keeper or lightkeeper is a person responsible for tending and caring for a lighthouse, particularly the light and lens in the days when oil lamps and clockwork mechanisms were used. Lighthouse keepers were sometimes referred to as ...
s were Allan Nicholson and Catherine Nicholson.
[
The current lighthouse was built in 1963, as the rear beacon of a pair of ]range lights
Leading lights (also known as range lights in the United States) are a pair of light beacons used in navigation to indicate a safe passage for vessels entering a shallow or dangerous channel; they may also be used for position fixing. At night ...
, helping to guide vessels into the canal at its northern end. The canal and its locks, allows ships to pass through the Canso Causeway
The Canso Causeway (''Cabhsair Chanso'' in Gaelic) is a rock-fill causeway crossing the Strait of Canso, connecting Cape Breton Island by road to the Nova Scotia peninsula. Its crest thickness is , carrying the two vehicle traffic lanes of th ...
, which crosses the Strait of Canso
The Strait of Canso (also Gut of Canso or Canso Strait, also called Straits of Canceau or Canseaux until the early 20th century) is a strait located in the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. It divides the Nova Scotia peninsula from Cape Breton Is ...
.[
The front range light, built at the same time, was of a similar design, until replaced in 1991 by a more functional ]skeletal tower
Skeletal frame light towers are lighthouse towers that have only an open frame. They are commonly built as aids to navigation; most of them are not considered to be lighthouses. However, during the late nineteenth century and the first years of ...
next to the water's edge.[
]
Description
The tapering wooden tower is of the salt shaker design, painted white, with a red lantern and balcony, although pictures from 2008 show an all-white tower and lantern. It has a broad vertical red stripe to mark the range line, matching the stripe on the front range tower. Both the front and rear lights display an occulting yellow light, flashing every eleven seconds, and both have a range of 16 nautical miles.[ The light is automatic, but only operates seasonally between April and December.][
]
See also
*List of lighthouses in Canada
This is a list of lighthouses in Canada. These may naturally be divided into lighthouses on the Pacific coast, on the Arctic Ocean, in the Hudson Bay watershed, on the Labrador Sea and Gulf of St. Lawrence, in the St. Lawrence River watershed ( ...
References
External links
Balache Point Lighthouse at the Nova Scotia Lighthouse Preservation Society
Aids to Navigation
''Canadian Coast Guard''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Balache
Lighthouses completed in 1963
Lighthouses in Nova Scotia