Cape Breton lighthouse to be moved before it falls off cliff
Gabarus lighthouse currently sits two metres from a rapidly-eroding cliff by the Atlantic Ocean
A Cape Breton community is close to saving a 125-year-old lighthouse perched on an eroding cliff's edge.
A contractor will be moving the Gabarus lighthouse next week, says the chair of the Gabarus Lighthouse Society, which manages the building.
"This lighthouse is really the heart of our community. It draws people to Gabarus and it's our heart," Janet Mcgillen said Wednesday. "We need to save it."
Gabarus, N.S., is a small fishing village about 40 kilometres south of Sydney.
The historic lighthouse — the only in N.S. with a hexagonal shape — is in danger of falling off the cliff as it erodes, Mcgillen said. It sits only two metres from the edge above an 18-metre drop into the Atlantic Ocean.
The group won $50,000 in a national contest this summer to pay for the restoration.
They're hired local contractor Jim Demeyere, who has already started work.
"They've straightened it already," Mcgillen said.
'All of our lighthouses need to be saved all across Canada'
The next step is to lift it up and slide long steel beams under it, society member Tim Menk said.
The contractor will "literally slide the lighthouse from its current position to where it will sit on its new foundation," about 12 metres away, Menk said.
Once the move is complete, the society will focus on a major restoration project, including windows, sandblasting and painting, Mcgillen said.
"This is just one lighthouse out of many," McGillen said. "All of our lighthouses need to be saved all across Canada, and they are all in danger."
The hope is to finish work for the community's 300th anniversary in 2016.
With files from George Mortimer