Since Canada's first lighthouse was lit in 1734 at Louisbourg, Cape Breton Island, lighthouses have served as mariners' primary navigational markers, their lights and foghorns alerting sailors -- and later aviators -- over uncertain waters. But a federal review of staffing at lighthouses undertaken last September threatens to relegate these beacons to historic monuments.

Until the 1970s, in almost every lighthouse, a keeper was stationed to assist in rescue, provide materials and help to mend sea-ravaged boats -- a symbol of refuge and steadfastness. News that lighthouse keepers have themselves come under threat of obsolescence has triggered fresh debate over the value of their role.

De-staffing lighthouses -- removing the keepers in favour of automated beacons -- is hardly new. Fisgard was de-staffed in 1929, more than 40 years before Canada officially decided to move toward automating all lighthouses.

Fisgard has continued as a working automated lighthouse in the 81 intervening years. Canada began removing keepers from its 264 lighthouses in 1971 as automated equipment was brought into the stations. At the time, 42 B.C. lighthouses were manned. Today that number is down to 27.

The de-staffing process was frozen in the face of a public outcry in the mid-1990s, and no more lighthouses in B.C. were switched to automation after 1997.

However, Department of Fisheries and Oceans staff maintain that the policy to de-staff lighthouses was never taken off the books. And in early September 2009, all of B.C.'s lighthouse keepers were visited by either a district superintendent or Susan Steele, regional director of maritime services for the Canadian Coast Guard. While DFO maintains the visits were to inform keepers that the government was reviewing de-staffing, the keepers' union says the purpose of the meeting made no mention of a review.

Steven Bergh, president of the lighthouse union and keeper at Chatham Point, said Steele informed the keepers their stations would be de-staffed shortly as DFO moved toward fully automating all lightstations.

Bergh, who was set to retire this month, withdrew his retirement notice and readied to fight for lighthouse keepers.

"I feel a duty to the public that we serve," Bergh said. "I can't abandon them."

In the wake of that internal announcement, which was not made publicly, Bergh and lighthouse advocates made enough noise to spark an outcry. Mariner, commercial fishery and aviation organizations threw their weight behind the lighthouse keepers and flooded the DFO with letters, arguing that the human presence ensures critical onsite weather reports and assistance to mariners.

On Sept. 30, Fisheries and Oceans Minister Gail Shea froze the de-staffing decision and announced a staffing review of B.C.'s 27 lighthouses, as well as the 23 stations in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Requests for an interview with Shea were refused.

Repeated requests to interview Canadian Coast Guard staff, including current lighthouse keepers, were also denied. Requests for interviews with Transport Canada and Environment Canada were referred back to DFO.

The federal government maintains that lighthouse keepers are outdated, their presence made obsolete by automated navigational and weather aids. Lighthouse keepers and their supporters, however, argue that someone has to monitor and maintain the automated devices, and stress that they continue their traditional roles in maintaining other equipment such as rescue boats, offering assistance to aviators and mariners in distress along Canada's shores, providing first-hand weather accounts, relaying radio messages and more.

Supporters of staffed lighthouses point to the unpredictability of navigating B.C.'s rugged coast, where weather patterns can change dramatically over short distances. They argue that automation cannot replace the reliability of a set of watchful human eyes.

DFO communications staff, however, maintain that buoys equipped with weather-tracking devices are 99 per cent reliable. Environment Canada says unmanned lighthouse weather stations are reliable 95 per cent of the time. B.C.'s coast has 27 weather autostations and 17 moored buoys that deliver meteorological data every hour.

Mariners' anecdotal reports, however, differ from government records.

Robert Burkosky, a cod fisherman on the BC Maid II, said that during a two-week trip in October it was rare to find all the automated weather reports functional, and that radio transmissions in one hazardous situation were rendered unintelligible due to cross-channeling with an automated weather channel.

"The manned lights are certainly the most reliable and available," Burkosky said of the types of navigational aids along the coast that include unmanned anchor buoys equipped with devices, unmanned stations and manned lighthouses.

Lighthouse keepers also respond to airplane pilots' requests for first-hand weather accounts.

Kirsten Stevens, who heads Safe Skies, an aviation industry watchdog, said aviators need lighthouse keepers to provide accurate weather reports as coastal weather patterns are "notoriously variable," and to be available to lend aid to distressed mariners.

"Pilots have difficulty getting good and accurate weather [information] here on the coast," said Stevens. "It's almost impossible to get the kind of accurate information you need for flying around in float planes. What the lighthouse keepers provide is something you just can't get mechanically."

Ron Singer, spokesman for Nav Canada, the private corporation that monitors the country's civil air navigation services such as air traffic control and aviation weather reporting, counters that automated weather reporting along the coast is extensive and growing.

"From our point of view, the enhancements we have put in place are meeting the requirements for float-plane operators," Singer said. That includes eight webcams set up along the coast that can be accessed from the Internet for updates every 10 minutes. The website also shows detailed weather maps that are updated every hour.

"These were developed with quite extensive consultation and advice from airplane, helicopter and float-plane operators and pilots," Singer said. Digital cameras with higher resolution are being added to the company's network.

Cost savings have been cited as a factor in de-staffing lighthouses; however, requests for the latest figures on how much money would be saved were denied on the grounds that lighthouse budgets cross several ministries.

A financial review of operating costs for staffed B.C. lighthouses from 1998 to 2002, however, showed estimates ranging from a low of $7.4 million in 2002 to a high of $8.9 million in 1998.

A DFO marine programs national performance report stated that staffing lighthouses cost the federal government $24.5 million in the five years leading up the 2003-04 report.

In the U.S., lighthouses have been fully automated since 1998. John Moriarty, a retired U.S. coast guard commander, said in an interview from Seattle that automation, technology in the form of global positioning devices, surface radar and electronic charts and improved search-and-rescue capabilities have rendered lighthouse keepers obsolete.

Bergh argues, however, that smaller pleasure craft such as kayaks are rarely fully equipped with such technology, and foreign vessels coming into Juan de Fuca Strait often fail to meet the equipment standards found in North American commercial vessels. He added that Canada's marine presence does not match that of the U.S., and that fact -- coupled with B.C.'s more remote and varied shoreline, where populated areas are few and far between -- makes lighthouse keepers essential for the security of mariners.

"Every life is extremely valuable, so to say there's never an advantage to having a human presence is a falsehood," Moriarty said. "There's always an advantage to having a person."

Phil Jenkins, communications manager at DFO in Ottawa, said the move to de-staffing is not cash-driven.

"The Canadian Coast Guard's No. 1 priority is the safety of mariners," Jenkins responded in an e-mail. "With today's technology, the traditional role of a lightkeeper is no longer essential at lightstations with automated aids-to-navigation equipment. This CCG decision was about making the most efficient use of Canadian taxpayer dollars."

Ministry staff say that if the review determines lighthouse keepers are necessary, then that option "will be given full consideration."

Bergh is now waiting to hear from Ottawa on whether the review will include public consultation.

"If it was just about the jobs, I wouldn't be doing it," Bergh said. "But there's an outpouring of letters from users, recreational boaters and aviators that require the service. For that reason, I feel it's important to keep up the fight."

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LIGHTHOUSES BY THE NUMBERS

- Recent figures were unavailable for operating costs. However, a financial review for operating costs for B.C. during the years 1998 to 2002 placed the annual total cost of light stations at:

$7,400,000 in 2002

$7,200,000 in 2001

$6,760,000 in 2000

$6,950,000 in 1999

$8,900,000 in 1998

- The total net book value, that is, the market value for all of B.C.'s 27 light stations

in 2002, was nearly $4,000,000.

-- SOURCE: CANADIAN COAST GUARD, PACIFIC REGION

jhatherly@tc.canwest.com