Light Tower

The Light Tower stands tall in its isolated setting at Bagot Bluff on the barren shores of Anticosti Island. It is a white, hexagonal tower of reinforced concrete comprised of a central column supported by flying buttresses. No decorative elaboration detracts from the clarity of its strong vertical thrust. A shorter, steel skeleton tower stands immediately adjacent to the tower on its site. The designation is confined to the footprint of the building.

The Light Tower is a Recognized Federal Heritage Building because of its historical associations, and its architectural and environmental value.

Historical Value

The Light Tower is associated with the expansion of the navigation system within Canada for the provision of coastal navigational aid. As the steamship trade grew, increasing the number of shipwrecks on this island, it was necessary to install more powerful lights. This 1912 tower succeeded another originally established in the 1870s on the eastern tip of the island.

Architectural Value

The Light Tower is an excellent example of innovative design, construction and application of materials that combines experimental engineering with good aesthetic design. The Light Tower exhibits the functional precision and scale of the buttressed reinforced-concrete tower design developed and employed by the Department of Marine and Fisheries between 1906 and 1912, under the direction of Colonel William Anderson, Chief Engineer. His groundbreaking application of reinforced concrete construction to tall structures gained international attention. The buttresses, employed to counteract a lateral thrust, braced the tower against the horizontal wind load common to windswept sites.

Environmental Value

The Light Tower is compatible with the maritime character of its remote coastal setting and is a familiar landmark to seagoing vessels in this area.

Sources: Martha Phemister, Lighttower, Bagot Bluff, Ile d’Anticosti, Québec, Federal Heritage Buildings Review Office, Building Report, 89-173; Lighttower, Ile du Havre Aubert, Iles de la Madeleine, Québec, Heritage Character Statement, 90-249.

The character-defining elements of the Light Tower should be respected.

Its good aesthetic and excellent functional design and good craftsmanship and materials, for example:

- the tall massing of the hexagonal structure with a lantern platform;

- the distinctive, tapered profile and pleasing form created by its flying buttresses and its crisp simplified lines;

- the reinforced concrete structure;

- the small window openings;

- the whitewashing.

The manner in which the Light Tower is compatible with the present maritime character of its remote coastal setting and is a familiar landmark, as evidenced by:

- its overall scale, massing, design and materials, which harmonize with its barren, natural and isolated surroundings;

- its physical prominence from the water, which contributes to its role as a seacoast marker.