Cranberry Islands Lighthouse

The Cranberry Islands lie off Cape Canso at the eastern entrance to the Strait of Canso, where they guard the approaches to Chedabucto Bay on Nova Scotia's Eastern Shore. The present light is a 48-foot square concrete tower painted white with a red lantern, standing on the south point of the island and reachable only by boat.

This station has a remarkable three-generation history. The first light here dated to 1815, and in 1864 the Cranberry Islands received Nova Scotia's very first fog signal. After fire destroyed an earlier tower in 1883, the current concrete tower was built in 1929 to replace it. It was fitted with a third-order dioptric lens and, by 1992, an electric lantern producing a flashing white light every 15 seconds.

Automated by 1986, the 1929 tower still stands today as one of the more substantial reinforced-concrete lighthouses on the Eastern Shore. Because it sits on an offshore island, it is best admired from the water or from viewpoints around Canso rather than visited up close.