Points East Coastal Drive - Prince Edward Island PEI

The view from the top of the tower is spectacular and helps make this is one of the most popular sights on the Island.  It is an elegant square tapered octagonal wooden tower, clad in white-painted shingles  with a projecting cornice that supports a galery and a multi-sided, red painted steel lantern.   Built in 1867, and being octagonal, means it is one of the older lighthouses. The newer ones built after 1873 are four-sided.

Notice the decorative elements, vertically aligned gable windows, the gabled door, window at the low-level fog detection balcony and well-proportioned fascia and cornice. The tower is a Recognized Federal Heritage Building.  Inside, stairs wind up the tower.  Tour admission charged.

This lighthouse is situated on the extreme eastern end of Prince Edward Island where the mighty tides of the St. Lawerence and Northumberland Strait meet to create a show of nature's force.  The history of shipwrecks off the coast reveals that this area was one of the most difficult to navigate.

This 64 foot high light was built about half a mile (0.8 kilometers) from its designated mark. In 1882, the British warship, HMS Phoenix, was shipwrecked off East Point, due in part to the location of the lighthouse. Captain Grenfell’s charts placed the lighthouse at the tip of East Point. For navigators relying on the light at night, it was just enough to turn a close, but safe, course around the reef into a trip right onto the rocks. The “Phoenix” was not the first vessel to discover this, but it was the most famous. In 1885, the light was moved to where the charts said it was located. 

It is a pre-confederation model, made by a self-taught local man, who normally built barns. The eight beams which rise from the floor of this tower are 45-foot-long single logs of black spruce which cause Islanders to marvel that the place ever had trees that tall. Its heavy timber frame construction on a stone foundation is a very good functional design and typical of the era. The colour scheme featuring a white tower with contrasting red-painted steel lantern and fog balcony railings has an operational purpose in contributing to the structure's visibality.

East Point lighthouse has something for everyone - picnic area, bird watching, seal sightings and community visitor information centre.  The near-by fog horn building houses a gift shop, cafe and an internet centre.