After the light: the reuse and replica of Canada’s historic lighthouses

ABSTRACT

Lighthouses are enduring symbols of maritime heritage, representing the history and identity of coastal communities. Over the last few decades, however, these structures have been increasingly decommissioned and divested especially in response to the rise of navigational technologies and costly maintenance. Remarkably little academic scrutiny has been paid to the present and future challenges of these sites, and even less attention has been given to contexts of lighthouse closure, reuse, and replication. In response, this paper combines lighthouse infrastructure data with media analyses and qualitative interviews to explore the ‘afterlives’ of Canada’s historic lighthouses, examining their transformations and the cultural politics involved in their reuse and replica (or faux lighthouses). We argue that historic lighthouses are not only significant features of maritime heritage but also serve as contemporary sites of coastal change and growth. By studying their afterlives, the paper sheds light on the intricate and complicated lifecycles of lighthouses and the communities that depend on them. Overall, we contribute to a broader understanding of coastal heritage, emphasizing the importance of examining adaptive reuse and the emergence of replica lighthouses as practices that renegotiate established values, meanings, and emotions associated with these iconic structures.

KEYWORDS:

• Lighhouses
• coastal heritage
• adaptive reuse
• replica
• maritime identity

Introduction

In the summer of 2010, the Canadian government announced that it was getting out of the lighthouse business. After decades of federal oversight, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) declared 976 coastal lights under its management as ‘surplus’. According to the DFO, most of the lights should ‘be replaced with simpler structures whose operation and maintenance would be more cost-effective’ (CBC 2010). For some, this divestiture came as little surprise given the steady modernisation of marine navigation through advances in radar and global positioning satellites (GPS), and subsequent lighthouse de-staffing trends since the 1970s. Under the new framework, heritage associations, community groups, municipalities and individuals were anticipated to take on the responsibility for these infrastructures through a petitioning process. Consequently, many of these local entities have emerged as the current and future stewards of Canada’s coastal beacons.

This transition has underscored not only the financial commitments required to safeguard and conserve lighthouses but also reveals the enduring challenges in preserving built material heritage along the coasts. For lighthouse enthusiast and writer, Chris Mills (2010, 5), the decision to ‘dump these historical lights on the public’ is both ‘unrealistic’ and serves as a clear signal of the imperative to recognise the ongoing role of lighthouses in Canadian society. As he puts it,

Canada needs lighthouses for a number of reasons: for the safety of those vessels which still look for a light or listen for a horn; for history, as part of a network of navigational aids that helped the commerce of this massive country grow; for tourism - many provinces are destinations for people who come either specifically or incidentally to see lighthouses. To offload our nation’s lighthouses is to turn our collective back on our safety and our heritage.

In the decade and a half since this ‘offloading’, the Canadian lighthouse landscape has undergone dramatic transformation. While some lights remain operational, many others have been privatised, repurposed as public spaces, left abandoned to decay, faithfully preserved, and even replicated to replace those lost or destroyed. Amidst these changes, the future of the lighthouse remains uncertain. To date, however, little academic research has explored the plight of the modern (Canadian) lighthouse (c.f. Strang, Edensor, and Puckering 2018; Tingley 2017), and even less attention has been paid to the increasingly complicated trajectories of historic ‘surplus’ lighthouses and the communities that depend on them. What is at stake when these places of communal history are privatised, ruined, renovated, reused, or even replicated?

In response, this paper engages with what cultural geographers consider as the ‘multiple lives’ of the built environment, an acknowledgement of the complex and often contested (hi)stories and geographies of buildings (Jacobs, Cairns, and Strebel 2012; Kraftl 2010). Our focus concerns the afterlives of lighthouses, the phase after their use as active navigational beacons. Here we pay attention to the transformation of historic lighthouses including exploring the decisions, practices, and emotional politics of closure, reuse, and the establishment of replica (or faux) lighthouses. In exploring these afterlives, we argue that surplus lighthouses play an increasingly complicated, but nonetheless, vital role in defining local, regional, and national identities. Overall, reuse and replica speak to both a commodification of lighthouse heritage and a pervasive desire by coastal communities to preserve key elements of their collective histories. In short, the retention of the lighthouse – in whole or in part, physically or symbolically, ‘real’ or replicated – is a fundamental practice in (re)making place and in defining community.

The paper is organised as follows. First, we trace the critical literature on lighthouses, focusing on three dimensions: as iconography, as socio-technical infrastructure, and as socio-economic space. This section then explores the literature in cultural geography to set the stage for a nuanced reading of these built environments. These critical lenses help us to understand how and why built material heritage, like lighthouses, is not only deeply symbolic but ‘affective’, and fundamental to acts of place- and authenticity-making (Kraftl 2010; Lees 2001). Second, we highlight the contemporary context of lighthouses and their role as heritage sites along Canada’s coasts, vast and dynamic spaces spanning the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines and large inland freshwater lakes. This section explores the practices and impacts of closure, reuse, and replication as part of a contemporary coastal heritage landscape. Here, we reflect on the architectural geographies of Canadian lighthouses and highlight how lighthouse afterlives are powerful contexts affecting and inhabiting contemporary cultures and coastal communities. We conclude the paper by outlining ways that critical heritage scholars may contribute to ongoing lighthouse research, in the spirit of opening dialogue between heritage practitioners and researchers and a broader field of heritage studies.

At the edge of the land: critical geographies of the lighthouse

Lighthouses have long played a pivotal role in the growth and development of Canada and its coastal communities. As in other contexts, lighthouses have served key functions, from guiding ships through hazardous waters and marking channels to rationalising maritime jurisdictions and empowering colonial land (dis)possessions. In this section we explore what we call an emerging critical geography of the lighthouse, that is, a concerted interest in understanding not only the functionality of lighthouses as coastal beacons, but more explicitly in uncovering their wider cultural, economic, and spatial roles in Canada and beyond. With some considerable glossing, critical social science research has largely focused on three key dimensions of the lighthouse: as iconography, as socio-economic space, and as socio-technical infrastructure. After briefly presenting these dimensions, we expand our critical geography of the lighthouse to consider calls by scholars of architectural geography to ‘move beyond an emphasis on representationalism and towards a consideration of the practical and affective or nonrepresentational import of architecture’ (Jacobs and Merriman 2011; Lees 2001, 51).

The first dimension concerns the pervasive iconographic function of lighthouses in construction and preservation of place identity and cultural heritage (della Dora 2022). In many rural and coastal communities, lighthouses represent fundamental spaces of identity and heritage making, a dynamic process shaped by their role in both functional and symbolic economies. On the one hand, active beacons continue to play an operative role in the ‘blue economy’, a leading global agenda for harnessing the economic potential of oceans and coasts. In this context, some lighthouses continue to serve as critical maritime infrastructure by safeguarding marine supply-chains, small-scale fishers and the diverse tourist economies along the coasts. On the other hand, whether active or inactive, lighthouses like Peggy’s Cove (Nova Scotia) perform a significant role in defining place and community identities, accentuated by their distinct aesthetic features and their visibility, isolation, and ‘liminality’ (i.e. at the edge of land and sea) in the landscape (Strang 2018, 4). It is these types of distinctions that help shape a wide diversity of regional coastal identities; from a ‘Maritimicity’ in Atlantic Canada (McKay 1988), to an emerging Cascadian identity in the Pacific North-West.

Place identities, however, are not always (or ever) fixed. Indeed, the symbolic value of the lighthouse can also travel. For decades now, lighthouses have been popular as emotional and affective ‘memory objects’ in the souvenir and memorabilia industries, recast into model lighthouses, miniatures for keyrings and lawn ornaments, or recreated in postcards, calendars, and table mats, to name a few. Strang (2018, 144) explains that the appeal of these loaded commodities lie in the fact that they are ‘conveniently portable, ownable objects, which literally provide the purchaser with a memorial – a souvenir of what the lighthouse is and does’. The mass merchandizing and the popularity of souvenirs speaks then to a second critical geographical dimension of lighthouses, namely, their commodification as part of a global practice to differentiate and sell place.

In response to economic decline and the transformation of resource industries, like fisheries, many coastal communities have turned to place branding and ‘imagineering’, the creative remaking and repackaging of architecture, place, and heritage, to entice new consumers and lure capital (Atkinson, Cooke, and Spooner 2002). Lighthouses can play an important role here as they are conspicuous and compelling sites that often emphasise storytelling, immersion, and thematic consistency (Chylińska 2021). Over the last several decades, global lighthouse tourism has intensified as many lighthouses have been remodelled and renovated as historic monuments and museums, with others sold in private markets to be reused as gift shops and accommodations. In some cases, lighthouses have been left, either intentionally or by neglect, to ruin (DeSilvey 2017). Together, these transformations have supported the development and visibility of lighthouses in the production of ‘cultural itineraries’ – distinct spaces of heritage, recreation, and economy, some linked across vast coastal routes (Magnani and Pistocchi 2017; Mollica 2021). In this case, imagineering typically plays on romanticised notions of maritime heritage, nostalgia, and the desire for curated and Instagrammable experiences, catering to the growing trend of experiential tourism and the pursuit of unique, photogenic moments. For some, however, such ‘improvements’ come at the expense of authenticity and the loss of local community identity (Atkinson, Cooke, and Spooner 2002).

A third, and final, dimension of lighthouses concerns their dynamic role as socio-technical infrastructure. In ways contradicting some of the popular nostalgic narratives described above, lighthouses are complex technologies tied to notions of modernity and progress, and integral to the circulation of colonialism, power, and (im)mobility (Strang, Edensor, and Puckering 2018). Lighthouses have long been part of advancements and experimentations with construction and illumination technologies; both of which have played an instrumental role in the transformation and experience of space (ibid.). Particularly powerful with the introduction of modern illumination and lens technologies coastal lights ‘unlocked’ remote coastlines and highlighted harbours, seaports, and waterways. Foremost here is the role of lighthouses as a critical infrastructure in colonial expansion and early state building. For European powers, the establishment of lighthouses (but also lightships, beacons, and buoys) along the coastlines of colonies around the world were integral to the practice of empire building: These were ‘symbols of a new world’ and technologies of imperial governance that effectively ‘mapped grids of colonial vision onto vast maritime domains’ (Tagliacozzo 2005, 308). Similarly, Miller (2010, 13) argues that lighthouses were clear ‘instruments and manifestations’ of early state building, some of the first ‘tangible projection(s) of federal presence’. Like their European counterparts, lighthouses like Cape Hatteras (North Carolina) and Cape Spear (Newfoundland), were instrumental in (dis)possessing land from indigenous peoples and demarcating (colonial) authority, particularly as they wove disparate trade networks into a cohesive national economy and were part of a systematised network of infrastructure that showcased the ‘capacity, credibility and longevity of the state’ (Miller 2010, 14). Across the Canadian Maritimes, Tingley (2017) also highlights that lighthouses were an important part of the region’s ‘social infrastructure’ – spaces of public administration, inter-provincial and imperial relationships, and economic development.

How might we add to these readings of the lighthouse? While most accounts take a textual lens that emphasise iconographic and representational approaches, how might we include other ways of seeing, of being in/with, or of feeling about these spaces, particularly those that have shifted from ‘official’ navigational roles to other purposes entirely?

One departure is through scholarship in the geographies of architecture, a small but growing literature that highlights the importance of spatial experience and the lived embodied encounters with architectural structures (Llewellyn 2003). As Kraftl and Adey (2008, 214) explain, these ‘more than representational approaches’ move us beyond simply ‘reading off’ the symbolism of architecture to engage with the complex (and changing) diversity of actors and agents, material practices, and encounters (e.g. haptic, performative, affectual) in and with the built environment. Our focus here concerns several threads of analysis instigated from these ‘new’ architectural geographies, chiefly inhabitation, and adaptation.

An important starting point involves a critical engagement with ‘being-in’ the built environment, that is, in understanding the use of architectural space through practices of ‘dwelling, consuming and inhabiting buildings’ (Jacobs and Merriman 2011, 213). Taking these practices seriously challenges the implicit impression that architectures are stable environments conceived, developed, and governed by experts. Instead, architectures are, according to Guggenheim (2013), ‘mutable immobiles’ in that they are at once fixed in place but always open to interpretation and change, particularly by their everyday users. In this way, architecture is also ‘performative’ (Lees 2001) as countless social practices and identities that take place in, around, and about architectures, both produce and are produced by architectural space. For instance, Adey’s (2008) detailed exploration of airport galleries, modern stages for viewing the ‘spectacle of flight’, highlights how these balcony architectures are inseparable from the wider airport landscape and functioned beyond a fixed state of ‘watching’, ‘gazing’ and ‘seeing’. Rather, these ‘inhabited’ spaces ‘conduct feelings, sensations, socializations between the passengers and the activities on the apron concrete’ (ibid., 14). Put another way, airport galleries shaped and were shaped by the diverse modalities of watching (relaxing, spotting, playing), and the dynamic ‘affects’ of place evoked from unique sensory experiences (smell, touch, and watching with others).

Issues of design and adaptation are also inextricably linked to notions of inhabitation. Whilst we might acknowledge the fundamental role of architectural ‘experts’ (e.g. architects, planners, and designers) critical architectural geographies consider the complex ‘life histories’ of buildings beyond their influence, a focus that not only considers the conception and development of architecture but also contexts of growth, transformation, ‘death’, and in some cases, rebirth (Cairns and Jacobs 2014). Such an approach then moves to engage in the ways architectures are (re)produced by users, residents, occupants, and even those concerned with building conservation and maintenance. As Jacobs and Merriman (2011, 216) put it, these actors

are necessarily everyday designers, or at least re-designers: intervening in the fabric of a building (knocking a door though here, changing a window there, wallpapering everywhere) or re-programming its planned for activities. (using a study as a bedroom, a dining room as a lounge, a former factory as an art gallery, a window to suicide by)

The scale and scope of transformation is often connected to the nature of inhabitation: From piece-meal changes that occur as ‘ordinary inhabitants’ are in/with architecture (Kraftl 2010), in more deliberate ways through modifications designed to preserve and protect built environments; or, through more dramatic changes that seek to adaptively reuse entire buildings or portions thereof (Lynch 2022).

The last of these, adaptive reuse, speaks to the global practice of converting outmoded buildings to new practical purposes. More than mere renovations, reuse is increasingly understood as a tactic in the reinvestment of place and the means to create interesting and livable environments that retain residents and attract innovation, investment, and tourists. Key here is the role of reuse as an ‘affective’ placemaking practice, that emphasise specific values, meanings, and emotions of places. Heritage properties with particular social and historic significance are often targeted for reuse since they are loaded with opportunities for emotional encounters, but also present novel ‘stages’ with which to build unique ‘consumptionscapes’ (Stephenson and Lynch forthcoming).

We note, too, that the reuse of institutional properties has gained momentum, particularly in response to political-economic shifts and institutional reforms. These reforms, often driven by neoliberal agendas, have led to a widespread rationalisation of public assets and a decrease in public-sector support in favour of entrepreneurial and private market investment (Lynch 2022). Redundant schools, hospitals, worship spaces, prisons, military bases, power plants, and even lighthouses are being considered for redevelopment and reuse.

Overall, critical scholarship on architecture and the built environment has called into question assumptions and normalised perceptions that often veil the interplay between physical structures, social dynamics, and cultural narratives. The role of a building’s primary meaning makers extends beyond the confines of formal designers and architects, encompassing a broader spectrum of stakeholders who engage in transforming, using, dwelling, and interacting with these architectural spaces at various moments along their life histories. This work ‘may be embedded in a conscious effort and intention about making/changing – but it may also be a result of an embodied being in the world with architecture’ (Jacobs and Merriman 2011, 217). This scrutiny prompts us to re-evaluate the conventional narratives that shape our understanding of space and place and urges us to embrace a more nuanced comprehension of the constructed world; one which includes understanding how architectures are assembled, made, unmade, and remade anew.

Such considerations are valuable for understanding the ‘surplus’ lighthouse. As these structures are increasingly divested and decommissioned, they are partially unmade, or unmoored, as official navigational beacons managed and protected by institutional systems and actors. Some lighthouses are then remade for, or re-moored to, entirely new uses and users redefined through novel practices, embodiments, and performances. In the remainder of this paper, we highlight the remaking of the Canadian lighthouse – a set of practices and processes that illustrate the ongoing complexity and enrichment of these sites as vital coastal infrastructure and heritage.

Into the afterlife: decommissioning Canada’s coastal lights

Over the last two decades coastal beacons and lighthouse infrastructure across Canada have been dramatically transformed and are increasingly defined by trends of replacement (sometimes retrofitting), divestiture, demolition, privatisation, reuse, and replica.

Lighthouses and navigational beacons are typically managed by the Canadian Federal Government, through the aegis of the DFO, the Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) and, more recently, Parks Canada. However, as historic lighthouses have been decommissioned, especially since 2010, there has been little centralised documentation of the condition and context of these structures. Accounts of historic, surplus, and demolished lighthouses are now scattered across various media platforms from popular press to lighthouse enthusiasts’ blogs, and to websites developed by local and community heritage societies. As result, we are left with a woefully incomplete picture of the contemporary lighthouse landscape.

This paper compiles data on Canada’s lighthouses from two main sources: federal department records (DFO) (2023); Parks 2023, CCG 2024) and accounts from lighthouse societies which include recent and archival data of local lighthouses and lighthouse routes (Lighthouse 2023; NSLPS 2023a). We focus specifically on lighthouses and light towers, defined as coastal structures which house, or have housed an elevated light beacon, excluding other navigational infrastructure like buoys or stand-alone fog signals.

We also collected and coded media related to lighthouse reuse and replica, including media from heritage agencies (NSLPS 2023a), popular media (CBC News) and publicly available reviews posted by lighthouse users and visitors on Google Reviews, Airbnb and TripAdvisor. Finally, we conducted three in-depth semi-structured interviews with key informants related to lighthouse reuse and replica, these include two managers of heritage lighthouses and one owner of a faux lighthouse. These interviews helped clarify specific policies such as lighthouse decommissioning, heritage recognition, and construction/maintenance practices.

As summarised in Table 1, there are currently more than 700 beacons and long-range lights along the coastlines and waterways of British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, and the Atlantic provinces. Some of these lights are modern automated skeletal towers that have replaced older structures. Additionally, 51 lighthouses are still manned by lightkeepers despite the pressures to fully automate marine infrastructure.¹ While the retention of light-keeping practices primarily serves operational and safety objectives, it also underscores cultural preservation efforts. For instance, the maintenance of lightkeepers on Machias Seal Island in the Gulf of Maine is motivated, in large part, by sovereignty considerations (Senate of Canada 2011).

Table 1. Lighthouses of Canada (approximate data based on available sources: DFO (2023); Lighthouse 2023; NSLPS (2023a); OHT 2023; and author’s data, as of May 2023).

Province	Total Number of Lights^1	Staffed Lighthouses	Recognized Heritage^2	Demolished^3	Privately Owned Lighthouses	Reused^4	Replica^5
Newfoundland and Labrador	82	23	34	58	1	6	0
Prince Edward Island	59	0	22	4	16	12	1
Nova Scotia	170	0	45	93	11	8	9
New Brunswick	85	1	14	51	17	8	3
Quebec	146	0	22	95	4	16	1
Ontario	154	0	54	79	10	19	6
Manitoba	12	0	2	3	0	0	2
British Columbia	48	27	23	14	0	5	0
Total Canada	756	51	216	397	59	74	22

¹Includes all active and inactive lighthouses/light structures that remain standing. This number does not include buoys or stand-alone fog signals. At present, there are approximately 500 active lighthouses/light structures across Canada; ²Lighthouses/light structures that have received official (i.e. Federal/Provincial/Municipal) heritage recognition; ³Lighthouses/light structures that were destroyed or removed and not replaced; ⁴Lighthouses/light structures that have been fully or partially adapted/transformed for purposes other than navigational aids; ⁵Replicas (also called faux lighthouses) are reproductions or refabrications of historic lighthouses placed either at the original lighthouse site, relocated to a new site and/or integrated into new or existing urban fabric.

These figures are contrasted by almost 400 demolished lighthouses nationwide, and includes both formal (e.g. planned, and mechanical) demolition and informal demolition (e.g. unplanned, ruined, and/or demolition by-neglect). While rates of demolition are difficult to pin down given lack of oversight, heritage advocates have pointed out that many of the surplus but unsold lights after the 2010 divestiture have continued to deteriorate beyond repair (NT 2024).

With the establishment of the Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act (HLPA) in 2010, the federal government (through Parks Canada) has developed a more systematic practice for decommissioning, recognising, and protecting historic lighthouses. The act defined a two-year community lighthouse nomination process (2010–2012), followed by selected sites for heritage designation and heritage protection.² In practice, the HLPA safeguards surplus lighthouses upon their transfer to new ownership, requiring the care, management, and restoration of these properties to adhere to national conservation standards. Operationally, Parks Canada initially seeks other federal agencies to assume stewardship, and if unsuccessful, explores alternative ownership arrangements. Currently, 107 lighthouses fall under the HLPA mandate (Parks 2023), with an additional 109 sites receiving other forms heritage recognition (i.e. provincial, or local).

Finally, we highlight the trend of lighthouse privatisation, wherein this public coastal infrastructure transitions to private ownership and investment. Approximately 60 lighthouse sites are now privately owned and operated across the country, many of which are reused and renovated for purposes other than navigation. We now turn to these afterlives and explore the complexities of the reuse and replica of historic lighthouses.

Lighthouses reborn

In evoking the ‘rebirth’ of lighthouses we acknowledge the ‘deep natalist veins’ of architecture, that is, that ‘buildings, although inanimate, are often assumed to have lives’ (Cairns and Jacobs 2014, 1). In this way, lighthouses, like most buildings, are said to have life cycles and life-histories: they are conceived and developed; they grow and transform, they breathe, they die, and, in some cases, they are reborn. In this metaphor, the death of a lighthouse is embodied through processes of obsolescence, decay, and demolition, conditions that stem from these structures largely being ‘in place but out of time’ (ibid., 103) – fixed in place, between land and sea, but antiquated by new technologies. In the rebirth of a lighthouse, however, we see conditions of resuscitation, revival, and even cloning, what are more formally considered as reuse and replica.

Reviving the light

As mentioned above, adaptive reuse, as both a (re)building practice and a philosophy, has gained considerable traction and has increasingly infiltrated novel architectural terrain including industrial and institutional properties, both private and publicly owned. We can add lighthouses to this growing list. Reusing lighthouses, of course, is not new. In Europe and England, for instance, archaeologists have documented reused ancient lighthouses, or pharos, built on strategic coastlines. Dover Castle (UK) and the Notre Dame Des Anges church in France, are two examples of the incorporation of lighthouses into newer structures and functions, with the former integrating a pair of Roman pharos into a Norman fort (later, re-reused as a gunpowder magazine) and church (Booth 2007); and the latter converting an ancient lighthouse to a seventeenth century church bell tower along the shores of Collioure, nestled at the foothills of the Pyrenees.

The contemporary global landscape of lighthouse reuse, however, is not well documented even given the popular demand for redeveloping unique heritage-rich properties and the growing supply of ‘obsolete’ structures. In Canada, roughly 74 lighthouses are being reused, many of which are in the central region (Ontario and Quebec) (Table 1). In Table 2, we also note the diversity of reuse, from new roles as coastal or maritime museums/welcome centres, community event spaces, and research facilities, to transformations into lodgings, retail spaces, and residences. Additionally, in some sites we also see multiple and simultaneous forms of reuse.

Table 2. Reuses of historic lighthouses in Canada (source: DFO (2012); Lighthouse 2023; author’s data).

Type of Reuse	Total (n = 89*)
Artist Space/Galley	3
Community Event Space	3
Lodgings (Vacation/Airbnb Rental or Hotel)	11
Museum/Welcome Centre	47
Private Residence	9
Retail/Restaurant	8
Research/Educational Facility	5

*N.B. total includes cases of multiple types of reuses in the same site.

Importantly, most lighthouse reuses (57 in total) continue to serve some public function. This process is facilitated, in part, by the HLPA agenda and the growing involvement of non-profit heritage/lighthouse societies in assuming stewardship roles. Funded predominantly through membership dues, donations, lighthouse tours, and functional reuses, the missions of these heritage societies (e.g. Nova Scotia Lighthouse Preservation Society (NSLPS), Canadian Lighthouses of Lake Superior (CLLS)) revolve around some version of ‘preservation’, particularly in terms of sustaining public access, and disseminating, restoring, or safeguarding ‘cultural values’ (NSLPS 2023b), ‘navigational history’, and the ‘stories’ embedded in lighthouses (CLLS 2023). These initiatives underscore the role of iconic tangible heritage as a key tool in the perpetuation of local and regional identities. Additionally, the popularity of museums and welcome centres as prominent reuses emphasises the enduring ‘interpretive’ role of lighthouses: as formative spaces in the production of ‘cultural itineraries’ for coast-bound tourists (Magnani and Pistocchi 2017) and as historical testimonies to the colonisation of coastal communities (Miller 2010; Tagliacozzo 2005). Indeed, lighthouses across coastal Canada tend to reaffirm settler-colonial space through both the presentation and celebration of modern (lighting) technology and through the tangible preservation of early markers of the western ‘frontier’.

The remaining instances of reuse (33 in total) pertain to privately owned and operated sites. Many of these endeavours align with themes of cultural preservation and local and regional identity, albeit within the overarching context of entrepreneurialism and profit-making. Some ventures are driven by the allure of private residential spaces, intertwining with the act of ‘owning’ a piece of heritage (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Reusing Lighthouses as Lodgings (clockwise: Ile aux Perroquets Lighthouse, PQ; photo: M. Villeneuve, 2005; Cap Chat Lighthouse, PQ; photo: A. Beloin, 2010; McKay Island Lighthouse, ON; photo: J.M. Cunnin, 2016; Cap D’Espoir Lighthouse, PQ; photo: C.W. Bash, 2008).

Given these developments, we ask: In what ways has the process of reuse given rise to encounters with and performances of lighthouses that extend beyond their original or official roles? One direction concerns the ways in which some reuses have transformed practices of dwelling and inhabitation. To be sure, lighthouses have traditionally served as spaces of dwelling, quite literally so with the historic occupation of lighthouse keepers. Across literature and popular culture, the iconic figure of the lightkeeper has come to embody narratives of dedication, resilience, and guardianship, underscored by their monastic-like existence in the confines of isolated light towers and keepers’ cottages, often located in harsh and perilous environments (della Dora 2022).

While professional lightkeepers still exist today, the concept of inhabitation has undergone a notable transformation through the intentional commercialisation and domestication of lighthouses especially as lodgings and private residences. In essence, dwelling in a decommissioned lighthouse is an opportunity to play the role of lighthouse keeper. Here, the reuse of lighthouses and their grounds is a type of curated reprogramming – this is an historicised space designed for owners and visitors to embody the practice and performance of lighthouse keeping, and to experience an ‘authentic’ way of life.

In Airbnb listings and accommodation advertising, potential visitors are shown iconic lighthouses in bucolic settings, and invited to experience the ‘magic’, ‘serenity’, ‘charm and tranquility’ afforded through a stay in the historic structures. Cap Chat (2024), in the Gaspésie region of Québec, includes a prominent narrative of developing ‘therapeutic’ relationships between bodies, buildings, and the environment. The reuse of the lighthouse as a coastal retreat both materially and symbolically reflects the ‘affectual notion’ (Kraftl and Adey 2008) of the site as a curative space. Here, the lighthouse is at once:

A space to recharge your batteries.

A space larger than life.

A caring space for healing.

A space to grow.

These narratives tap into a deep nostalgia for the lighthouse, a site and space revered for its inherent liminality – an escape to the ‘frontier’ and an experience of the ‘remote’ away from everyday (urban) life.

In other sites, similar narratives embody a more specific form. At the Cap D’Espoir Lighthouse, for instance, ‘you will have the honour of residing in a house which, in the past, was inhabited by the personnel of the lighthouse, privileged witness of the legends and history of the sea’ (translation from French). In other sites, visitors are explicitly incited to step into, stand watch, and become lightkeepers themselves:

Step into the legend: Become one of the Île aux Perroquets lighthouse keepers for a night (translation from French; Ile aux Perroquets Lighthouse, PQ)

Stand watch at the gateway to the continent like the last lighthouse keepers. (translation from French; Pot à L’Eau de Vie Lighthouse, PQ)

Be a Keeper of the Light (McKay Island Lighthouse, ON)

Playing the part of the lighthouse keeper is made possible both through the very act of dwelling in the lighthouse (i.e. being-in, being-around, being-present), but also through a series of performances that emerge through encounters with buildings, with nature, and with other spaces, visitors or inhabitants (Kraftl and Adey 2008, 214). Watching, and more specifically ‘seeing’, ‘viewing’, ‘relaxing’, but also smelling and listening (‘to the musical sounds of the waves’) from the lighthouse and the coast (i.e. ‘the gateway’), are fundamental practices that allow this personification to take place. Reflections from some visitors speak to these performances and highlight the rather deep affective role of this inhabitation:

The kids spent a lot of time in the lighthouse … the view, the birds, and the ocean … . What more could you ask for? The binder with history and info was handy as well as the telescope and binoculars. (Airbnb, Hardy’s Channel Lighthouse Retreat, PEI)

An incredible experience, pure nature, plus the smell of old oil from the time when the lighthouse was still in operation. (Google Reviews, Pot à L’Eau de Vie Lighthouse, PQ)

You can climb the stairs up to the top and walk outside around the old light … Panoramic views from inside as well as on top! The lighthouse is located on an island you’ll have all to yourself. Great opportunity to experience the life of a lighthouse keeper. (Google Reviews, McKay Island Lighthouse, ON)

This IS maritime country! The end of the world ❤. (TripAdvisor, Cap D’Espoir Lighthouse, PQ)

These inhabitations, however temporary, expose not only ‘what people think about buildings but what they do in them’ (Kraftl 2010, 407). Visitors as dwellers help to ‘reprogram’ the lighthouse from a regulated surveillant space of protection and safeguarding, to a curated stage for arguably more domesticated, even colonial, ‘spectatorial experiences’ (Adey 2008, 40). Moreover, these visits and temporary ‘impersonations’, while framed as authentic, are clearly underpinned by sanitised, safe, and romanticised consumptionscapes of the lighthouse and the lighthouse keeper’s life. Indeed, lost in these stays are the banal, tedious, and everyday details that go into living in isolation and guarding the light.

But not all affects are the same. In Cap D’Espoir, visitors stay in the lighthouse cottage, a short distance from the separately owned and restricted lighthouse beacon. Here the messy realities of reuse, including conflicting ownership and access, disrupt an authentic lighthouse script and muddle the experience:

When we got there, doubt set in as … the lighthouse seemed to belong to an individual. We left empty-handed. (TripAdvisor, Cap D’Espoir Lighthouse, PQ)

[S]adly, the place needs love! It’s kind of abandoned, you can see that the top is falling apart. The views are really great, but neglecting the care of a historic landmark makes me think something is wrong. I am very sad because I saw during my visit that no one is maintaining the place. This is a historic site, and I don’t understand why anyone [sic] takes care of it. (TripAdvisor, Cap D’Espoir Lighthouse, PQ)

Such reflections of lighthouses – that are off limits, in neglect, in disrepair – speak to inhabitants’ diverging reception, and indeed expectations, of these consumptionscapes. Reuse is both a material and affective adaptation which can evoke unpredictable or contested emotional encounters well beyond the intentions of their designers.

Cloning the light

In addition to adaptive reuse, the contemporary lighthouse landscape is also increasingly marked by the production and performance of the ‘faux’, false, or fake lighthouse. At a fundamental level the faux lighthouse is a non-operational clone, an architectural imitation of a lighthouse. We also argue that these structures are a type of iconographic reuse which plays on reproducing symbolic values inherent in the form and function of the lighthouse, what Strang (2018, 144) calls the ‘the homologous personhood of the lighthouse and its social and cultural meanings’. While Strang’s account explores ‘miniature’ lighthouse replicas, however, here we focus on approximate or scale-reproductions of coastal beacons.

It is important to acknowledge that while faux lighthouses fall under the category of replicas, not all replicas can be classified as faux lighthouses. Many heritage lighthouses, such as Peggy’s Cove, NS, serve as examples of operational replicas of original beacons. These structures undergo ‘refabrication’ often with historical precision, typically in response to damage or destruction, and are situated in the same location as their original counterparts. In contrast, faux lighthouses are often purpose-built at a new site, and are interpretations of beacons, having never functioned as navigational lights. As the structures typically lack in historical accuracy, some faux lighthouses (e.g. Reed’s Point Light, NB) can be considered abstract replicas, alluding to lighthouses and their architectural features without aiming to be ‘true’ facsimiles.

Our research has identified approximately 22 faux lighthouses across Canada. These structures exhibit diverse characteristics in terms of origin and ownership, design, and historical fidelity (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Faux Lighthouses (clockwise: The Grand Anse Lighthouse, NB; photo: D. Jarvis, 2022; Nancy Island Lighthouse, ON; photo: CMH, 2017; Reed’s Point Light, NB; photo: D. Jarvis, 2021; Digby Pier Lighthouse, NS; photo: D. Jarvis, 2018).

Most faux lighthouses (17) are developed and/or managed by heritage associations and public agencies (i.e. local governments). In this case, and much like reused beacons, the structures serve public functions, from museums and research sites to welcome centres. In the case of the latter, some faux lighthouses, like the Gimli Light in Manitoba, are part of a wider network of tourism information sites that fill in key gaps along coastal routes.

The remaining five faux lighthouses are privately owned and are projects largely developed by lighthouse enthusiasts experimenting with heritage architecture and/or remaking a lighthouse for sentimental reasons (Interview 2023).

While faux lighthouses are significant sites playing on similar scripts to reused lights, we argue that these structures – in their condition as replica, as ‘fake’, as clone – also engender distinct forms of placemaking which involve complex encounters with and performances of ‘authenticity’.

First, we note the contested nature of these structures. Here, faux lighthouses are inextricably tied to a wider ‘socio-politics of replica’: As dominant modernist discourses have continually fixed authenticity to original historical materials, replicas have been framed as ‘unruly or wild objects, potentially subverting or threatening the authenticity of originals’ (Foster and Jones 2019, 1170).

It is along these lines that the NSLPS (2023b), for instance, has asserted that building ‘fake lighthouses bring certain dangers’, including diverting financial resources away from the preservation of ‘authentic’ lighthouses; undermining the cultural significance of ‘real’ lighthouses; distorting the historical messages of lighthouses, and blurring the distinction between genuine and imitation structures and thus jeopardising the authenticity of heritage attractions.

While such claims are difficult to verify, there is indication that some replicas diverge and detract from the didactic roles of original beacons. This is especially true of cases like the Nancy Island Lighthouse (ON) and the Cecebe Lake Lighthouse (ON), replicas that serve as quaint landscape ornaments and photo-ops bereft of (historical) context along tourist waterways or commercial areas.

Beyond these ‘dangers’, however, lighthouse replicas also foster an identification of place and community, a process of ‘cultivating an awareness (a-where-ness) of identity’ (Osborne 2001, 33). For Lees (2001, 53) architecture is a crucial tool in this process as it ‘anchor[s] identities and construct[s], in the most literal sense, a material connection between people and places, often through appeals to history’. Many faux lighthouses are purpose-built and symbolically loaded sites meant to provide social continuity and establish spatial and temporal reference points for society. For example, together with an Acadian themed aesthetic³ and gift shop, the Grand Anse replica (Figure 2) is a suture in the Acadian Coastal Drive, a material link along the 750 km route through the heart of historic Acadian territory in New Brunswick. So too, this replica is a symbolic marker of Acadian nationalism, a ‘shared littoral heritage’ (Tingley 2017), that stands against a seemingly homogenous Anglo-‘Maritimicity’ of the region (McKay 1988).

Additionally, the lighthouse replica, as with other forms of architecture, is about more than just representation (Lees 2001). For Foster and Jones (2019, 1170), replicas of all kinds can be ‘actively involved in the production and negotiation of authenticity’. Replicas, like their original counterparts, are made authentic partly through ‘the networks of relationships that they come to embody – relations with people, objects and, importantly, places’ (ibid., 1170).

Outside of Hantsport NS, a replica of the Horton Bluff Lighthouse reflects these complex social and material practices (Figure 3). Completed in 2011, the Horton Bluff replica was built as a private family cottage but was also a project in ‘remembering’ the local and personal histories of light keeping and coastal ways of life:

I [property owner] grew up on the lighthouse road … the lighthouse keepers’ son and I would play in the road, in the woods, in the lighthouse … every night we’d listen to the foghorn. (Interview 2023)

Figure 3. The Horton Bluff Faux Lighthouse (left: replica in construction; right: replica completed; photos: R. Myles, no date).

Since its construction, visitors including lighthouse tour groups, news media and wedding goers have made Horton Bluff a destination. While some aspects of the structure were updated, the Horton Lighthouse speaks to the ways in which replica ‘connects through affect, producing a “touching” encounter where the senses and emotions respond in some positive, but ineffable way’ (Foster and Jones 2019, 1170). For instance, previous occupants of the original lighthouse have made ‘pilgrimages’ back to the site, ‘they came home to a type of family reunion at the lighthouse’, some remarking on the faithful likeness of the property: ‘this is what it was. This is where we grew up!’ (Interview 2023). Remarkably, the Horton replica reflects what Foster and Jones (2019, 1185) call an ‘acquired’ authenticity and ‘pastness’ developed from both material practices and an anchoring to place. In other words, the replica comes to life, in part, through a series of ‘felt relationships’ forged both by the materiality of the lighthouse (i.e. attention to detail) and its placed-based iconography – a social and symbolic space of local community and heritage.

Second, and perhaps paradoxically, we note the context of ‘travelling’ lighthouse replicas, in Canada and beyond. Here we highlight how practices of architectural mobility, that is, of the relocation and replication of faux lighthouses across space, challenge a sense of authenticity and evoke complex affects. In the case of the former, entire lighthouse buildings have been uprooted and installed in different settings, often used as landscape ornaments. The Digby Pier Lighthouse (Nova Scotia) is one example of this process, as it was rebuilt on the Digby pier but then relocated to New Brunswick, first as a symbolic marker for the entrance of a Canadian Coast Guard Base and later moved to feature in Saint John’s Market Square commercial area. By 2012, the Mayor of Digby lobbied the City of Saint John to return the building ‘home’: ‘It just stuck with me that they were taking something from Digby, and that shouldn’t be happening … It was ours. We wanted it back’ (Mayor Cleveland, in Kane 2012).

As part of a wharf revitalisation project in 2016, the lighthouse was returned to Nova Scotia⁴ and is now a prominent element of Digby’s Admiral Walk, a waterfront walkway. During its re-dedication ceremony, the Mayor argued that the recovery and preservation of the replica lighthouse was paramount to a wider memorialisation of local built heritage, ‘I was asked why it was so important to preserve the Digby Pier Light … My response was to remember the loss of the Post Office, the old Scotia Bank and the train station’ (Lighthouse 2023). The Digby Lighthouse is thus part of a larger politic of heritage preservation as the replica not only stands-in for its lost relative but also punctuates the erasure of the wider heritage landscape.

Beyond physical relocation, the notion that architectural ideas, forms, and technologies ‘travel’ from one place to the next has also been well developed (Kraftl 2010). While some researchers have mapped the distribution of architectural styles and practices as a way of understanding the diffusion of cultural forms, others (see, Cairns and Jacobs 2014) have focused on more contemporary mobilities and ‘flows that enable “global” building types to appear in different cultural contexts’ (Kraftl 2010, 409).

It is along these lines that we highlight the peculiar case of the Peggy’s Cove Resort in Thailand. Located 225 km south of Bangkok, the Peggy’s Cove Fishman’s Village Resort is promoted as a ‘new-fangled experience of authentic Fishermen’s lifestyle … Combining the captivating ambience of a Western fishing village’ (Peggy’s Cove Resort 2023). The resort conspicuously mimics the original Peggy’s Cove in Nova Scotia, featuring 38 traditional ‘fishing’ houses linked by meandering boardwalks and murals depicting maritime scenes; a reception centre modelled on an ambiguously Christian worship space; a lighthouse themed restaurant; and a replica of the Peggy’s Cove lighthouse also serving as cafe. According to the resort owner, ‘[t]he main idea of building this resort has come from my parents’ dream to share the beautiful feeling of travelling in Peggy’s Cove … We have tried to give customers the charm of the Canadian fishermen village’ (Blackburn 2016, emphasis added).

Notably, the resort architect purportedly conducted all their design research online, underscoring the hypermobility of architectural ideas and the (impossible) task of producing authenticity through the transplantation of iconic architectural forms. In this case, the replica lighthouse is positioned as a key iconographic anchor of the resort landscape. As replica and as theme, the Light (and its associated symbols throughout the resort) not only help stitch together a simulated ‘version’ of Peggy’s Cove but also encourage distinct forms of affect, from a nostalgic fascination to a calm meant to mirror the ‘easy going’ nature of ‘people in Peggy’s Cove’. This is also a rather explicit case of ‘imagineering’: a curated reality based on idealised interpretations of Canadian ‘Maritimicity’ as remote, simplistic, and charming. In effect, this replica diverges from the Horton or Digby lights as the simulated Peggy’s Cove Light is unmoored from local ‘networks of relationship between people, places and things’ essential for cultivating authenticity (Foster and Jones 2019, 1185). Simply put, this is a distant replica: a decontextualised beacon mobilised across vast socio-spatial contexts, and a sentimental icon serving as a photogenic prop in a wider landscape of consumption that demands more imagination from its observers than it provides (Zukin 1993).

Overall, this analysis underscores the dynamic and multifaceted nature of lighthouse reuse and replication in contemporary contexts. From adaptive reuse projects that repurpose lighthouses for public and private functions, to the production of faux lighthouses that challenge traditional notions of authenticity, the ongoing transformation of these coastal beacons reflects broader trends in heritage conservation and architectural innovation. In the Canadian context, these developments not only preserve the tangible (colonial) heritage and cultural narratives of lighthouses but also facilitate new encounters and performances that extend beyond their original roles. This intricate interplay between preservation, commercialisation, and the symbolic significance of lighthouses invites us to reconsider the socio-cultural implications of adaptive reuse and replication in shaping both local identities and global architectural discourses.

Conclusions

With each passing day more lights are turned off. As navigational technologies continue to roll out along intricate coastal networks, lighthouses are increasingly ‘consigned to the realm of redundancy and oblivion’ (della Dora 2022, 185). And yet, in their various afterlives these structures continue to play complicated yet vital roles in the evolution of coastal communities and in the perceptions of coastal visitors seeking encounters with these unique spaces. While some beacons are faithfully preserved as functional relics of maritime histories and lifeways, this paper has explored the emerging, and largely ignored, practices of reuse and replica – processes entangled with distinct social, cultural, and architectural politics.

Perhaps unsurprising given its global popularity, adaptive reuse is now a common strategy for maintaining lighthouse properties. But beyond simply tracing physical or functional transformations, in this work, we have underlined how reuse in coastal Canada also (re)negotiates established values, meanings, and emotions of this built heritage. Indeed, as contemporary inhabitants, new owners and visitors participate in redefining lighthouses from institutional sites of maritime safety, surveillance, and labour to spaces of curative, romantic, and nostalgic consumption. And while reuse affords a new lease on life (for some time, at least), such practices nevertheless raise questions about how the commodification of heritage not only smooths over more uncomfortable or unpalatable realities of the lighthouse past but also inevitably celebrate certain pasts while ignoring others.

In the faux lighthouse we see similar reimagining especially in the construction of coastal consumptionscapes – at home or abroad. But so too, replicas speak to the complex role and production of authenticity. While some view the faux lighthouse as a threat to sites of ‘original heritage’, others have used replica as instruments of local reunion, remembering, and commemoration. Of course, how replicas or built ‘simulations’, like Peggy’s Cove Thailand, impact (i.e. enhance, revise, distort) the fidelity of coastal heritage is yet to be fully realised.

Finally, we highlight that this limited but unique view of lighthouse afterlives provokes a wider conversation, especially for heritage scholars, about the other roles that these sites might play, now and into the future. First, decommissioned beacons have important functional, symbolic, and affective roles in raising awareness and developing critical agendas around coastal change. Most notably, lighthouses are well positioned as ‘totems of the powerful impacts of global warming’ and as real-time ‘yardsticks’ of sea level rise and coastal transformation. As Harvey and Perry (2015, 7) put it ‘climate change agendas need heritage in order to generate affective capacity’. More attention needs to be paid to how these spaces, reused or replica, can be further leveraged to enrich contemporary perspectives that take seriously the role of built heritage as a critical infrastructure for radical change.

Second, and related, lighthouses, whether active, reused or replica, are inextricably linked to new socio-economic activities targeting the coasts. These spaces, for instance, are increasingly part of the emerging ‘blue economy’ – resource agendas that (re)prioritise our (extractive) relationships with the sea and coasts. Often missing from these discourses, however, is a recognition of the role of coastal heritage, what Boswell, O’Kane, and Hills (2022) call ‘blue heritage’. These, and other experts, call for a better engagement with local coastal communities including focusing on and safeguarding their blue heritage, ‘the tangible and intangible artifacts and “assets” of the oceans and coasts, as well as the intimate, cultural relations that people have with Earth’s oceans and coasts’ (ibid, 2). As we have documented, surplus lighthouses continue to play an intimate, though complex, role in our relationships with the land and sea, and are increasingly deployed as coastal resources in the emerging blue economy. As coastal economies evolve, however, there is a pressing need to consider which (his)stories and whose pasts these beacons are representing.

Exploring the afterlives of lighthouses has thus never been more urgent. What these spaces can become and how they can continue to affect local communities and impact coastal practices are key questions moving forward.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This publication received funding from Future Ocean and Coastal Infrastructures (FOCI), an Ocean Frontier Institute project. Research funding was provided by the Ocean Frontier Institute, through an award from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund, #20200928.

Notes on contributors

Nicholas Lynch

Nicholas Lynch is an Associate Professor of Geography at Memorial University of Newfoundland. He is a cultural geographer interested in the social and cultural dynamics of the built environment. His research involves exploring the contexts and issues of closure and adaptive reuse of historic properties. In other work, he explores the various challenges and impacts of urban development in smaller/peripheral cities throughout North America, and the implementation of building sustainability practices in cities around the world.

Bryhanna Greenough

Bryhanna Greenough is a Master’s of Geography candidate at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Her work focuses on the socio-cultural aspects of building reuse. Her current research project explores the case of Roman Catholic Church properties currently undergoing court-ordered liquidation throughout eastern Newfoundland.

Notes

1. The concentration of staffed lighthouses in BC and NL is largely due to ongoing concerns over the safety of ocean-going vessels and low flying (light) aircraft traffic that need reliable ‘eyes and ears’ as well as up-to-the minute weather reports along these vast coastal routes (Senate of Canada 2011).

2. Defined through a set of heritage criteria and managed by the Minister responsible for Parks Canada. The HLPA is available online: https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/H-3.4/.

3. Acadians are an ethnic group descended from the French who settled in the New France colony of Acadia (NB) during the 17th and 18th centuries. The Grand Anse Lighthouse replica has been painted with the modern Acadian colours and the yellow star of Mary, the patron saint of the Acadians.

4. According to the Mayor of Digby, the lighthouse was facetiously ‘traded’ for 230 pounds of Digby scallops – a renowned seafood product of the region.