Berens River originates in a lake in Ontario’s Kenora District and flows west through eastern Manitoba before discharging into the northern basin of Lake Winnipeg. The river was a Hudson’s Bay Company trade route and is named after Joseph Berens, who served as governor of the company from 1812 to 1822.

Berens Island is situated sixteen kilometres offshore from where Berens River empties into Lake Winnipeg, and in 1883, tenders were invited for the construction of a lighthouse on the island, which at that time was known as Swampy Island. A $2,900 contract was awarded to Richard Dickson of Selkirk for construction of Manitoba’s first lighthouse, which was placed in operation the following year. The following description of the lighthouse appeared in the Annual Report of the Department of Marine for 1884:

The new lighthouse on Swampy Island, off the mouth of Beren’s River, Lake Winnipeg, to which reference was made in the report of last year, was put in operation on the 12th June last. The light is fixed white, elevated 34 feet above water, and should be visible 11 miles from all points of approach. The illuminating apparatus is dioptric of the sixth order. The building is of wood, painted white and consists of a square tower 33 feet high, with dwelling attached.

Harry E. Plunkett was hired as the first keeper of the lighthouse at an annual salary of $350. Plunkett served as a keeper for over twenty years, and around 1903, the Annual Report of the Department of Marine started referring to the location where Keeper Plunkett served as Plunkett Island instead of Swampy Island. The List of Lights published by the Department of Marine referred to the light off Berens River as Channel Island through 1901 and then switched to calling the light Plunkett Island starting in 1902. Besides this change in name, the description of the light and its location also changed along with its GPS coordinates.

The description of the light went from being “White square wood with dwelling attached” to “White square wood upper part closed, lower part open.” The location of the light went from “East end of (Channel) Island, near mouth of Berens River” to “West end of (Plunkett) island off S. Side of Berens Island.” Though no record of a new lighthouse being built in Manitoba around 1901 is mentioned in the Annual Report of the Department of Marine, the List of Lights makes it quite clear that at that time the light off Berens River was moved from Berens Island (also known as Swampy Island and apparently Chanel Island) to Plunkett Island, a tiny island situated not quite three kilometres off the southern end of Berens Island.

The 1901 census shows that Keeper Plunkett was fifty-two years old at the time and that he and his wife Mary had two children living with them. The couple actually had four children, but the older two had moved away by the time of the 1901 census. Harry Plunkett was born at sea in 1848, while his father Edward S. Plunkett was serving as a lieutenant in the British Army. A little of Harry’s upbringing is known thanks to letters he wrote to his nephew in England while he was serving as keeper. One of these letters included the following:

I always lived with my father (and was) amongst soldiers all my youth up to 23 years of age. I have been in many parts of the world and roughed it with the best of them. I never let care nor worry bother me much.

Harry’s mother died in 1861 in South Africa, and at the time Harry’s father died in Ireland in 1875, Harry was working on a railroad survey in northern Wisconsin. Harry later returned to Dublin and married Mary Anne Smith. They soon emigrated to Canada, where the lived in Toronto for a few years before moving with their two young girls to Winnipeg.

A handwritten note in the 1904 List of Lights from the office of the Commissioner of Lights for the Department of Marine and Fisheries indicates that the tower on Plunkett Island had burned and was going to be replaced by a new structure on Cox Reef off the east side of Berens Island. This new lighthouse on Cox Reef was built in 1905 and placed in operation on September 20, 1905, at which time the light on Plunkett Island was discontinued. The Department of Marine provided the following description of the new lighthouse on Cox Reef:

A combined lighthouse tower and keepers dwelling was established on Cox reef, Lake Winnipeg. It is a wooden building, with kitchen annex, square in plan, surmounted by a square wooden lantern on the deck of the roof, and is 41 feet high from its base to the ventilator on the lantern roof.

This work was carried out by contract by Mr. John W. Scott, of Selkirk, Manitoba, the contract price being $4,100.

Keeper Plunkett might have served as the first lighthouse keeper on Cox Reef, as he reportedly died at a lighthouse in April 1906. Reverend Thomas Neville, a missionary at Berens River recalled that John Doggie has been asked to take over Plunkett’s duties:

John Doggie of Rabbit Point was put in temporary charge of [Plunkett’s] duties. Some time after John had been installed, I went over to see how he was getting along. I found him in the top of the tower sitting on the trap door entrance. He explained that he could only get away from Plunkett’s spirit that way. To my amazement he declared that the very first night he took charge, he heard Plunkett’s peg leg striking the floor as he made his rounds on the tower. Plunkett proceeded to shake the lights and to walk around in a very business-like way. The wooden leg struck hard as its possessor proceeded to inspect the quarters—chiefly at night. So John Doggie always retreated to the tower where he closed the trapdoor and sat on it to keep the restless phantom of the old lighthouse keeper away. While I was around there, I must say I never heard or saw anything of this but perhaps I was not as familiar with metaphysics as old John Doggie!

It is not known how Keeper Plunkett lost his log.

Donald Sayer was serving as keeper of Cox Reef Lighthouse when he and his assistant had a harrowing experience at the close of the 1935 navigation season. The following account appeared in several newspapers on November 14, 1935:

A howling blizzard obscured the fate of ten men stranded in the snowy reaches of Lake Winnipeg. Two of the men, Donald Sayre and his assistant, are lighthouse tenders on lonely Cox’s Reef, 140 miles north of the mouth of the Red River. Their lighthouse, according to fishing colony legend, is haunted by the ghost of a wooden legged man named Plunkett who first tended the beacon. The others are Capt. Roy Purvis and the crew of the ice-bound steamer Lu-Berc, who started out to bring the lighthouse tenders back to civilization some weeks ago. They were forced to abandon their ship when it became jammed in the frozen lake. Six days ago the eight sailors started a 130-mile trek by dog team, down the frozen lake and its snow blanketed swamps to the little northern fishing village of Gypsumville. No word has come from them since.

In 2020, flashing white lights exhibited from skeletal towers marked both the northeast end of Berens Island and Cox Reef.

Keepers (Swampy Island, Plunkett Island): Harry E. Plunkett (1884 – 1905).

Keepers (Cox Reef): John Doggie (1906), John Thomas (1906 – 1908), William Dore (1908 – 1909), A.A. Tashe McKay (1910 – 1913), A. J. Anderson (1913 – 1922), A.M. Anderson (1923 – 1925), Donald Sayer (1926 – at least 1940), Charles Settee (1957 – 1967).

References

1. Annual Report of the Department of Marine and Fisheries, various years.
2. “The One-Legged Lighthouse Keeper of Plunkett Island,” Anthony Plunkett, Manitoba History, Number 27, Summer 2014.

The modern light is best viewed by boat.

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