The city of Baie-Saint-Paul is situated where Gouffre River flows into the northern shore of St. Lawrence River and is where Cirque du Sloeil originated in the early 1980s.

Bay St. Paul lies between Cap au Corbeau and Cap de la Baie. At low water, the bay dries nearly in line with these points and there is no passage into the river at the head of the bay at that time. In 1876, a lighthouse, consisting of a square, wooden, thirty-foot-tall tower with and attached keeper’s dwelling, was erected on a pier in the centre of Bay St. Paul. Three flat-wick lamps set in seventeen-inch reflectors were initially used in the tower’s lantern room to produce a fixed white light at a focal plane of thirty-six feet above high water. The total cost of the lighthouse was $1,423.20. Hilaire Tremblay was hired as the first keeper at an annual salary of 200, and he placed the light in operation on October 29, 1876.

In 1898, new flooring was placed in the lighthouse’s kitchen and repairs were made to the bridge walk connecting the lighthouse to the wharf. The keeper was also provided a new boat that year, as the old one had “become useless from age.” Hilaire Tremblay’s tenure of nearly twenty-two years as keeper ended in 1898, and Thomas Tremblay was appointed his successor.

In 1904, the fog bell, which the keeper had rung by hand in answer to the signals of vessels, was discontinued. On August 12, 1905, a light inside a square, wooden lantern was established on the apex of the hipped roof of the freight shed on the outer end of the government wharf at Cap au Corbeau, on the eastern extremity of Bay St. Paul. Messrs. Thos. Desbiene and E. Conde constructed the light atop the shed for $89.24. A seventh-order lens was used to produce a fixed white light at a focal plane of thirty-one feet. With the new light to serve mariners, the old lighthouse in the middle of the bay was permanently discontinued on January 1, 1906. E. Cunningham dit Claudé was hired as the first keeper of the wharf light at Cap aux Corbeau in Bay St. Paul.

In 1915, J. Guillemette was paid $490 to erect a detached wooden lighthouse on the wharf at Cap au Crobeau. The new twenty-seven-foot-tall tower was square in plan, with sloping sides, and topped by a square lantern. Also in 1915, range lights were built on Cap au Corbeau. A hand-operated foghorn was established on the wharf at Cap au Corbeau in 1915, but it was maintained by the Canada Steamship Lines and was only used to answer signals from their own steamers. In 1916, the fog signal was changed from a horn to a bell, rung by hand.

Starting with the 1927 annual Light List, a note indicated that the wooden lighthouse at Cape au Corbeau had been destroyed and that a provisional fixed white light was maintained on the shore end of the wharf. This pole light was in use through at least 1960. Today, little remains of the wharf at Cap au Corbeau, but the range lights there remain in operation.

Keepers: Hilaire Tremblay (1876 – 1898), Thomas Tremblay (1898 – 1905), E. Cunningham dit Claude (1905 – 1912), P. Cimon (1912 – at least 1923).

References

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

No light exists at this location today.

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