Two Vancouver Island lighthouses are among 128 across the country that groups are trying to save from destruction or sale.
Community organizations and municipalities in eight provinces have come forward with business plans to save only a fraction of the lighthouses that Ottawa says are no longer needed for navigational purposes.
Lighthouses at Amphitrite Point, near Ucluelet, and Sheringham Point, in Shirley, are the two B.C. lighthouses for which plans were submitted by the June 1 deadline. The federal Fisheries Department would not release information Tuesday about who was behind the two Island applications.
The Amphitrite Point lighthouse was built in 1915 and is automated and unmanned. The lighthouse at Sheringham Point was built in 1912.
Five years ago, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans declared 970 of its active and inactive lighthouses surplus, saying they were no longer needed as aids to navigation, mainly because mariners now rely on satellite signals to set their courses.
The two Island lighthouses are among 41 across B.C. to have earlier petitioned for heritage status under the protection of Parks Canada. On May 25, East Point, on Saturna Island, and Fisgard Lighthouse, in Colwood, were named the first historical lighthouses in B.C.
The problem for lighthouse conservation groups in B.C. is working through logistical issues, said retired senator Pat Carney.
“It’s difficult in B.C. because of land-claim issues and because the lights are away from specific communities,” said Carney, who has led a push to save more lighthouses. She helped pass the Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act, which came into affect in 2010, to prevent historic lighthouses from being destroyed without public consultation.
Federal spokesman Andrew Anderson said despite the deadline, the department is willing to accept more business plans over the next two years, insisting Ottawa isn’t about to start demolishing or selling off surplus lighthouses.
“We are acutely aware that some of them can be of tremendous historic importance,” Anderson said in an interview from Ottawa. “If there’s a community interested … in taking a property and leveraging it for economic development in their community, then we certainly will enable that.”
— with files from Canadian Press
