Crystal Beach citizens take dim view of light
Cylindrical signal tower replaces former ‘lighthouse’ at Dick Bell Park
Hear this, Canadian Coast Guard: Crystal Beach wants its blinkin’ lighthouse back.
You know, the one that stood on the breakwater at Dick Bell Park on the Ottawa River and actually looked like a lighthouse — unlike its replacement, a red-and-white cylinder that one Facebook commentator called an “eyesore” and another said resembles a “gigantic cigarette.”
Oh, and Megan Maloney would like her geocache back, too, though she’s mostly given up hope on that.
The landmark lighthouse is a favourite, if modest, destination for summer stroll or brisk winter walk. It was plucked from its concrete mooring in March. West-end neighbours are taking a dim view of the navigational aid that went up in its place.
“This is sad news,” Kathy Riley wrote on the Crystal Beach-Crystal Bay-Lakeview page on Facebook. “The old one was part of our community for so many years.”
Added Keven Shafer: “I don’t think that having a romantic walk out to the ‘beacon’ will ever be quite the same as going for a walk out to the lighthouse.”
So tied, in fact, was the structure to the community identity, the West End Business Network made it part of the network’s logo.
The swap was also a surprise to Mark Taylor, the municipal councillor for Bay Ward. He says he wishes the coast guard had signalled its intention to replace the lighthouse as part of a national upgrade program. “At least we could have had a conversation about, ‘Look, the community considers this a nice feature at that park. Is there any way we could preserve the look and feel, even if there is a financial contribution required?’”
In an emailed statement, a coast guard spokeswoman said the new device is a standard design based on optimum colours and height for safe navigation, as well as access for maintenance. She said the old tower was “was structurally unsuitable and unsafe for our staff to access it to maintain the light.” Four similar towers between Ottawa and Arnprior will also be yanked as part of the program to replace navigation aids considered to be at the end of their life cycle.
The spokeswoman was unable to immediately say how much is being spent on the program, but she said the Dick Bell replacement was made within budget.
Nepean Sailing Club members who use the light as a guide to their berths behind the breakwater are unlikely to share the concerns of area residents.
“I guarantee a lot of them will barely notice, because to us it is what it is — a practical aid to navigation — and we all recognize it as such,” said club manager Gene Bruce.
Bruce sympathizes with the neighbourhood’s attachment to the former fixture. But he questions whether that structure — basically a steel tube with a railingenclosed cherry on top — even met the definition of a lighthouse.
Grant Millar, a longtime board member for the Crystal Beach community association, is among those lamenting the tower’s loss, even while he agrees it was a poor cousin to traditional tall wooden lighthouses.
“It was a culvert,” he said, laughing.
“But it had the little steel door at the bottom, and the railing that was added at the top that gave it a unique feature and made it look more like a lighthouse.”
Millar has proposed that the association erect a replica at a spot that wouldn’t interfere with the new device. Mark Taylor, meanwhile, said he still hopes to talk to the coast guard about the possibility of modifying the replacement to look more lighthouse-like.
Megan Maloney, however, figures there’s little chance she will ever see the $30 magnetic container — a faux utility plate — she had attached below the door of the old structure for geocaching buffs to find using GPS co-ordinates.
The coast guard told her its contractor didn’t find the cache and that the lighthouse has gone to the scrap heap.
“I put it on the lighthouse because it’s my favourite spot in Ottawa, and I wanted other people playing the game to get a chance to experience a wonderful, quiet area.”
The new beacon, she said, has no flat surface that could hold a new cache, and is far less welcoming overall.
“You can’t even sit up against it.”