A new steel and concrete bridge was built in 1964-65. Any major changes at the harbour took place in the past 25 years. We now have a paved road and wharf top and in 1977, eleven new bait sheds were built for the fishermen. At present there are 19 boats getting ready for the fishing season. Names of the Covehead fishermen today include Roberts, Robison, Misener, Myers, Morrison, McCabe, Campbell, Watts, Lamphier. Besides catching lobsters three of these boats are engaged in the tourist business. Two have mackerel seines and most of the remainder fish for cod, hake and haddock after the lobster season closes.

I might mention also that in the early days, to save their harbour from sanding up, fishermen would haul brush and trees to the harbour in the winter months; these they would pile out on the sand so that when it blew, the sand would catch in the trees and brush, rather than blow into the water, thus acting as a sort of breakwater. In about 1900 a breakwater was built at Covehead, up by the bluff and quite a way out into the water, the purpose being to deepen the water farther

over, so that boats could navigate more easily up and down channel. Written by Leslie McCabe, 1979.

Navigational Aids at Covehead Harbour

There was not much in the way of navigational aids for the fishermen in the early days. In 1880 a member of the MacMillan family, probably Lachlan, aged 21, was appointed to keep a lantern light on Black Point, where Lorne MacMillan now lives, at a salary of $60 per annum. A right-of-way 300 feet by 20 feet from the road to the light was purchased from Mrs. John MacMillan, Lorne’s grandmother.

The two range lights installed on the Stanhope bluff in 1910 were kerosene oil headlight lanterns mounted on wooden poles. There was an agreement between the government and John J. Davies, owner of the “Cliff Hotel” for rent for the range lights and accommodation for the light keeper; this was a log house or cottage, rented in the summer, when the keeper slept in one of the barns belonging to the hotel. Alex MacMillan lit the first light, and he was the first keeper, followed by John A. Kielly, up to December, 1911, then James McCabe, who kept the lights until May, 1924 at a salary of $120 per annum. He was succeeded by George Herbert Kielly from 1924 to 1931, and Tommy McCabe, in charge from 1931 to 1936 at a salary of $150 per annum. Lloyd Bell was appointed keeper on September 15, 1936 and was paid $180 a year. At this time one of the lights caught fire and was put out of business. It was a wild night, blew hard from the north-west on August 7, 1926; and in the winter of 1952 a light blew down in a bad storm, and was repaired by Harry Lawson. Other keepers included

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