Lighthouse fights to lift federal fog

scotto

Administrator
Staff member
Feb 15, 2004
6,985
218
63
The Beach Strip
#1
Posted with permission from the Hamilton Spectator
_______________________________________________
Paul Wilson The Hamilton Spectator's Streetbeat
Nov 12, 2010

George (Sandy) Thomson is CEO and sole owner of a company established in Hamilton 99 years ago.

It's known now as Thordon Bearings, located in Burlington, and makes bearings used in the marine industry. Thomson came up with a novel way to promote his product. He bought a steam tug from the Russian Navy for $100,000 and spent $1.5 million turning it into a floating showcase. He then captained that tug to more than 200 ports around the world.

"So I have an appreciation for my great-great grandfather's career," Thomson says.

He's talking about another George Thomson. That one was a captain on the Great Lakes. He was also Hamilton's lighthouse keeper, the man who at Christmas, 1857, moved into the new light keeper's cottage on the Beach Strip.

That brick cottage by the canal still stands. So does the white limestone lighthouse next to it, walls five feet thick.

But both have been empty and ailing these many years. George Thomson, 72, wants to help change that.

We've had stories about that lighthouse station, which has somehow survived modern times. It sits in the Skyway's shadow, 25 million vehicles a year rumbling overhead.

Seven years ago, local residents formed the Beach Canal Lighthouse Group to get the light station restored. The group soon grew to include city councillors from Hamilton and Burlington, engineers, artists, architects. They were inspired by the opening of the lakefront trail. On nice days, hundreds now hike, bike and skate past that five-storey monument to navigation history.

And the lighthouse group appointed Pete Coletti, a pirate of a man, parrot and all, as honorary member. He was the last keeper of the Hamilton light, and lived in that cottage for 23 years. In the early '90s he was sent off to the Maritimes and the place has been empty ever since.

The lighthouse group set out to have the restoration complete by 2007, 150 years after the light keeper's new lodgings by the lake were first occupied.

That deadline came and went. But there was great fanfare as guano crews in haz-mat suits arrived to remove layer upon layer of tangy pigeon goo, which coated the lantern room and the 79 creaky steps to the top.

At that time, the lighthouse group set a new target for restoration - 2008, the 150th anniversary of the lighthouse itself. That too was missed.

The lighthouse group once had some 200 members. Now it's now down to 50.

"To be honest, some people have given up," says George Thomson. "They wanted to see some activity, and who can blame them?" But he has joined the team with high hopes.

Retired architect Tony Butler - driving force behind the self-guided Made-in-Hamilton Industrial Trails - has been on the lighthouse project since Day 1. He can sum up the reason for delays in two words - red tape.

In certain corridors of power at the federal level, he says, "if you make a decision, it's career threatening."

The issue is ownership. The lighthouse and keeper's cottage belong to Fisheries and Oceans Canada. The land on which they sit belongs to Public Works Canada.

Some years ago, Fisheries and Oceans said it was prepared to turn over the lighthouse and cottage for $1.

But that's no good without the land. The lighthouse group believed Public Works was onside, but the department later declared it would not be turning over any land to a group of volunteers. It would be prepared to consider an agreement with the city.

So it was a big step forward late last year when Hamilton council voted to negotiate acquiring the lighthouse and keeper's cottage from the feds.

Public Works now wants a report on the project and that's under way. It could go to council in January.

There are two options for the lighthouse project. One is simple restoration. That would cost about $1 million. There might be money available for that from a reserve fund created when the city sold off Beach Strip properties.

The second option, which could cost a few million more, is to add an interpretive centre, canal-front cafe and all. Thomson believes that would be the best bang for the buck.

The lighthouse group - with a new website (bclg.ca) that features a remarkable panorama show - will debate all this at its annual general meeting this Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Beach Rescue Unit, 316 Beach Blvd.

StreetBeat appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

pwilson@thespec.com 905-526-3241
 
Top Bottom