The name Bonaventure has many meanings. It honors a great medieval Franciscan saint who combined piety with a passion for learning, and at sea, a bonaventure is the French name for a very short mizzen mast, stepped abaft a tall mainmast.

Lighthouse at Pointe Bonaventure in 1992, prior to its move Photograph courtesy Parks Canada Agency

In 1902 a short square wooden lighthouse, measuring thirty-four feet (10 metres) from its base to the ventilator atop its lantern room, was erected on Pointe Echouerie (also known as Souris Point). The white tower supported a red octagonal lantern which housed a seventh-order dioptric lens that produced a fixed white light. The first keeper was Louis Bourdage, whose wage was sixty dollars a year.

Captain O’Farelle, a lighthouse inspector, reported in 1906 that mariners approaching from the east in Chaleur Bay could not see the light on Pointe Echouerie. The lighthouse was thus moved roughly two kilometres to the southwest to Point Bonaventure in the spring of 1907, at a cost of $440. In 1910, the fixed light was replaced by a fifth-order occulting light, which was alternately visible for fifteen seconds and eclipsed for five seconds. The tower’s cedar shingles were covered with metal siding in 1976.

Theodore Babin was the light’s last keeper, serving from 1958 to 1965. On October 31, 1965, the light’s atomizing oil burner was replaced by an automated electric light, making the services of a keeper no longer needed. The light was deactivated in 1998.

The lighthouse was declared a Recognized Federal Heritage Building in 1996 due to its architectural features and historical associations. In 2005, the tower was moved 4.3 kilometres to a peninsula on the west side of the Bonaventure River, where it is more accessible to the public. This location just happens to be close to where Bonaventure River Light, a lens lantern, hoisted on a twenty-foot-tall pole, was established in 1910 at the outer end of a wharf.

Keepers: Louis Bourdage (1902 - 1903), Pitre Bourdage (1903 - at least 1914 (Was keeper at Point Echouerie before)), Ovide Bourdage (1914 - 1923), P. B. Bourdage (1923 - 1931), J. N. Babin (1931 - at least 1936), Theodore Babin ( 1958 - 1965).

References

1. Annual Report of the Department of Marine and Fisheries, various years.
2. Sentinels in the Stream, Lighthouses of the St. Lawrence River, George Fischer & Claude Bouchard.

From QC 132 on the west side of Bonaventure River, turn south on Chemin Plage de Beaubassin and continue past the entrance to Plage Beaubassin and the marina to the end of the road, where you will find Pointe Bonaventure Lighthouse. The lighthouse is typically open for climbing between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m.

The lighthouse in owned by La Ville de Bonaventure. Grounds/tower open.

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