If you’re one of the many folks who make the drive to Crystal Crescent beach to beat the hazy heat of a Halifax summer, you’ve probably spied a candy-striped red and white lighthouse on the horizon. And maybe, after a bone-chilling dip in the salty Atlantic you’ve rested on the hot sand for a bit and stared out to sea and wondered…hmmm…that lighthouse…what’s the story there?
Well, the massive stone tower on Sambro Island has stood on guard at the approaches to Halifax Harbour since Halifax was just a fledgling 9 years old. Begun in 1758, workers completed the granite structure two years later. It was a tough slog. Men hauled the heavy granite blocks to the top of the island to lay the bottom layers of the tower, which is almost two metres thick. The masonry was complete by late 1758 and in April of the next year Captain Joseph Rous became the light’s first keeper.
Things were a bit slack in the early days. Early oils used for the first light weren’t too reliable. If the light happened to go out, the keeper would often let the tower stay dark, especially if there weren’t any ships in sight. This didn’t go down well with naval authorities in Halifax, who noted that the fatal loss of the sloop Granby on the Sambro Ledges in 1771 occurred “…for a want of light being kept in the lighthouse, for it is most notoriously and shamefully so, the King’s ships bound into Halifax are frequently, nay, almost constantly obliged to fire at the lighthouse to make them show a light…”!!
Better lamps installed in 1772 helped, and for the ensuing 216 years, diligent keepers kept the light burning, and when necessary, sounded all manner of fog signals, including cannons in the 19th century. Artillerymen stationed on the island operated the cannons in fog, signalling naval and civilian vessels of the killer reefs and shoals lurking around the island.
One soldier, Alex Alexander (known locally as Double Alec) was sent ashore for provisions. Apparently Alec used the sterling he was given for other purposes, including wine, women and song…or similar delights. Contrite, he returned to the island and reportedly took his own life near the lighthouse. Almost immediately the island’s keepers felt a strange presence on the island. Over the years, right up until the last keepers left in 1988, Alec clumped along the station’s boardwalks, flushed toilets and on one occasion, reportedly slipped under the sheets with a visitor in the Principal lightkeeper’s house.
Alec might still be on Sambro Island, but today, he’s more or less left to his own devices. Folks in power boats and yachts visit the island on sunny days and admire the stone lighthouse and camp overnight, but the keeper’s houses are long gone and the last couple of outbuildings are tottering at the edge of oblivion.
But Sambro Light has its friends too; years of lobbying by the Nova Scotia Lighthouse Preservation Society led to complete restoration of the stalwart tower, inside and out in the late 1990s. Today, it’s the oldest operating (original) lighthouse in the Americas. At the end of every day, as dusk falls, Sambro Light continues to sweep into the gathering dark, and to mark the dangerous Sambro Ledges, lighting “the sea road to Halifax”.
