Harbour Information

Source: Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO)

A valuable part of any seaway are the markers that signal to the boats how close they are to land. Johnny Lind Smith was the man who for many years took care of these kerosene lights. The lights were off the government wharf and at the lighthouse below Bernie “Angus Bernard” MacDonald’s land. Every night Johnny Lynd would take the light down the pole by pulley and string, clean it, fill it with enough kerosene to last through the night, light it and hoist it back up the pole. This wooden lighthouse was replaced with an automatic electronic light in the 1970s.

Allen Tobey noted that: “the purpose of that particular lighthouse was it formed a range along with the light that was on the end of the Port Hood wharf. The two lights when kept aligned guided ships in to the Port Hood Harbour past all the sand bars and between the navigation buoys right up to the Port Hood wharf. The light would only have been visible from the direction of its intended range in the approaches of the harbour.”

The GREEN lights signal to approaching boats to keep to the RIGHT.

The RED lights signal to approaching boats to keep to the LEFT.

When meeting a boat, the boat going out of the harbour keeps to the RED markers and the boat going in keeps to the GREEN.

In the late 80s, a government ship took control of the four buoys that mark Port Hood harbour and began dropping them off every Spring and then picking them up every Fall:

• 1 GREEN off Park’s Beach
• 1 GREEN off the south end of the island
• 1 RED off the Port Hood Mines pier
• 1 RED off the high bank of the island

OpenSeaMap

View Murphys Pond Harbour on OpenSeaMap.org