Original Gimli Lighthouse situated at the end of the pier Photograph from Joanne Therrien Postcard Collection

Gimli is a community situated on the southwest shore of Lake Winnipeg. Due to harsh economic and environmental conditions in Iceland, brought on in part by the eruption of Mount Askja in 1875, some 20,000 Icelanders, roughly a quarter of the country’s population, left their homeland. A large group of these settlers arrived in Manitoba in 1875 and called their new home New Iceland. Gimli maintains a strong connection to Iceland and Icelandic culture today, and is home to the Icelandic Festival, held each year during the first weekend in August.

The Government of Canada provided a grant in 1898 to the community of Gimli for the construction of a harbour, and today the harbour is the largest on Lake Winnipeg. Fishing was an important industry for the first settlers of Gimli, and it remains a driver of the community’s economy today.

A permanent dock was built in the harbour in 1900, and in 1910, a twenty-three-foot-tall, wooden lighthouse tower, square in plan, with sloping sides and surmounted by a square wooden lantern was built to mark the harbour. W.S. Young, Inspector of Fisheries at Selkirk superintended the construction of the lighthouse, which cost $661.33. A fifth-order, 360° lens was used in the lantern room to produce a fixed white light. In 1912, Buchanan & Fraser of Winnipeg received $100 for moving the lighthouse at Gimli to the outer end of a new extension of the pier.

E.G. Thomson was hired as the first keeper of the lighthouse in 1910 at an annual salary of $80. K. Samundsson replaced Thomson as keeper in 1912. Pete Thompson served as keeper in the 1930s and 1940s and also worked as a scaler at the Armstrong-Gimli fish processing plant.

An ice pile-up in April 1943 pushed the lighthouse over and damaged it. In 1973, the original lantern room, which had been saved by a keeper of the lighthouse, was placed atop a replica of the lighthouse that is now attached to buildings that house the Lake Winnipeg Visitor Centre and the harbour master near the foot of the pier.

A white, square, skeleton tower with red bands at its top and bottom exhibits a flashing red light to mark the outer end of the breakwater at Gimli today.

Keepers: E.G. Thomson (1910 – 1912), K. Samundsson (1912 – at least 1923), Pete Thompson (1933 – at least 1946).

References

1. Annual Report of the Department of Marine and Fisheries, various years.

The lighthouse can be see along the waterfront in Gimli.

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