Pointe Claire is a municipality on the Island of Montreal, just west of the international airport. At the tip of the peninsula for which the municipality is named is found a stone windmill, convent, and the Saint-Joachim de Pointe-Claire Church. This point extends into Lake St. Louis and provides a clear view of the surrounding waters.

In 1860, three navigational aids were built to assist the trade between Lachine and Ottawa: two crib lights, one at Pointe Claire and the other at Green Shoal on Ottawa River, and a floating light at Point Valois. Just over a month after Pointe Claire Lighthouse was activated in October 1860, a storm and gale washed away many of the stones that were placed around the pier to protect the lighthouse from being damaged by ice. This left the lighthouse in a dangerous situation, requiring either more stone or a small crib to be sunk just upstream to break the force of the drifting ice in the spring. In 1862, the pier on which the lighthouse stood was raised and replanked and then a protection work was built adjoining the pier.

On April 22, 1869, the Department of Marine was notified that ice had carried away Pointe Claire Lighthouse and part of the pier on which it stood. Immediate arrangements were made to exhibit a temporary light on the remaining portion of the pier until Parliament provided the necessary funds to replace the portion of the pier that had been destroyed and to build a new lighthouse. This work was carried out the following winter. The total cost of the new pier and lighthouse was $3,157, and the light was exhibited from the new structure for the first time on April 30, 1870.

During the winter of 1872, an ice breaker was built to protect the pier and lighthouse at Pointe Claire from ice at a cost of $2,292. In the spring of 1873, ice carried away a large portion of the top of the icebreaker. This portion was deposited on the shore below Pointe Claire and was later retrieved and put back atop the pier.

The following report on Pointe Claire Lighthouse was made during an inspection in 1877:

Mr. Moise Leclerc, Keeper, with a family of six in number.

Served this Station on the 4th July. This is a white fixed catoptric light, having two lamps, one mammoth and the other No. 1, with 14 and 16-inch reflectors. The lantern is 3ft. 6in. in diameter, and is of iron; size of glass, 17 x 21 inches. The length of the pier is 57 feet by 19 feet. Height of tower, 26 feet. This light is well kept.

The pier requires 100 toise of stone to protect it, and the winter is the best time to do the work.

In 1892, the pier, which had been undermined and moved by ice, was replaced from the water level up with a 3/8-inch steel-plate casing that was thirty-six feet long, twenty-six feet wide, and nine feet high. The casing was filled with stone and concrete. The following year, twenty-five cords of riprap were deposited in front of the new pier for further protection from ice shoves.

On November 14, 1895, sparks from a passing steamer got under the sills of the lighthouse and burned it. The concrete cribwork foundation survived the fire, allowing a temporary light to be exhibited until a new lighthouse could be built. W.H. Noble, foreman of works, oversaw the construction which cost $1,738. The following description of the new lighthouse appeared in the 1897 Annual Report of the Department of Marine:

The foundation is of steel filled with concrete, and is a rectangular pier 36 feet long, 26 feet wide and 9 feet high. It is painted brown.

The lighthouse building which surmounts it is a rectangular wooden building painted white, with a brown roof. From the apex of the roof rises a square wooden lantern, painted red. The height of the building from the pier to the vane on the lantern is 33 feet.

The light is fixed white, elevated 35 feet above the summer level of the river. It should be visible 11 miles in the channels. The illuminating apparatus is dioptric of the 7th order.

Dolphis Crevier, who had replaced Moise Leclerc as keeper in 1888, was in charge of the lighthouse at the time of the fire. Keeper Crevier served through 1906, and then Benjamin Gloude, who was also responsible for the nearby Dorval Lighthouse, was placed in charge of Pointe Claire Lighthouse. It appears these lights were automated in 1919 as no keeper for the lights is listed after that year.

In 1915, mariners were notified that a new structure had been built atop the pier at Pointe Claire. Subsequent Light Lists describe the lighthouse as a concrete block surmounted by a lantern. In 1918, a fifth order lens was installed in the lighthouse and the colour of the light was changed – likely from fixed white to fixed red.

Pointe Claire Lighthouse was in existence through at least 1933, but there is no longer a light at this location.

Keepers: Moise Leclerc (at least 1865 – 1888), Dolphis Crevier (1888 – 1906), Benjamin Gloude (1907 – 1919).

References

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

No light exists at this location today.

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