In 1891, the Quebec Harbour Commissioners established a set of range lights to guide vessels to the Commissioners’ Wharf in Quebec Harbour. Three years later, the Department of Marine assumed control of the range lights, known as Quebec Range Lights. The following description of the range is from the Annual Report of the Department of Marine for 1894:

The front light stands upon the north-east corner of the Princess Louise Basin Embankment, near the Immigration Offices. It is fixed red, elevated 43 feet above high water mark, and should be visible 8 miles from all points of approach by water. The illuminating apparatus consists of an electric arc light shaded by a red globe, attached to an arm on a mast, which rises out of the centre of a small square tower painted brown. The height of the top of the tower above the wharf is 17 feet, and of the top of the mast, 40 feet.

The back lights are located on the Battery at the foot of Ste. Famille Street, 2,900 feet W. S. W. from the front light. They consist of two red lights 16 feet apart vertically, the upper one 112, the lower one 96, feet above high water mark. They are also electric lights, shaded by red lenses. The upper one is an arc light, and the lower one an incandescent light. They should be visible 8 miles in and over a small arc on each side of the line of range.

The higher lamp is hung from an arm on a post 47 feet above the ground, the lower one from an arm on a post 31 feet above the ground.

In 1900, a marine tower connected with a new large elevator was built on the west side of Princess Louise Basin. This marine tower blocked the light from the two fixed red lights maintained on the battery at the foot of Ste. Famille Street. To resolve this issue, the former lights were discontinued and a new fixed red electric arc light was established on the east face of the marine tower. This new light was displayed from an arc lamp suspended from brackets at a height of 103 feet above high-water mark. The new back light was 1,690 feet from the front light on the northeast corner of Princess Louise Embankment.

In 1907, the wooden tower and mast used to display the front light of Quebec Range were taken down, and a new skeletal tower was erected twenty-three feet back along the line of range from the site of the former front light. Goold, Shapley & Muir. of Brantford, Ontario supplied the new tower at a cost of $656.67, and day labour, under the direction of the Quebec agency, erected it for $65.14. The new tower was a steel, skeletal tower, square in plan, with sloping sides and surmounted by an iron box that contained a group of three incandescent electric lamps, each of sixty-five candlepower, that were placed in the foci of paraboloid reflectors.

In 1997, the front light of Quebec Range was being displayed from a red, square, skeletal tower on a grain elevator conveyor, and the rear light was being displayed from a skeletal tower that stood eighty-four feet tall. These ranges lights were still active in 2007, but in 2021, there were no range lights to mark the mouth of St. Charles River.

The offices of the Quebec Agency of the Department of Marine and Fisheries was housed in a building at Quebec City that is shown in the paragraph at the top of this page. No photographs of the old towers used for Quebec Range have been located.

References

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

No range lights exist at this location today.

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