Bear Island (Maine)
| Bear Island | ||
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| Waters | Atlantic Ocean | |
| Archipelago | Cranberry Islands | |
| Geographical location | 44 ° 16'59 " N , 68 ° 16'10" W | |
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| length | 370 m | |
| width | 280 m | |
| surface | 8 ha | |
| Highest elevation | 11 m | |
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Bear Island is an island in the Cranberry Islands area in the central coastal section of the US state of Maine with a lighthouse that has existed since 1839.
location
The beacon is located in the southeast of the island of the same name, only about 300 meters off the coast of Mount Desert Island in the Eastern Way passage to Northeast Harbor and Somes Sound. About 1 kilometer south is Sutton Island. The village of Northeast Harbor on Mount Desert Island is northwest.
The tower's location on a hill means that the flashing white, solar-powered light is 100 feet (30.5 meters) above sea level.
history
The decision to build a lighthouse at the southwest end of this small island was made in 1838, the farmer William Moore sold 2 acres (approx. 8,100 m) to the government for this purpose. The first lighthouse on the western part of Bear Island, put into operation in 1839, was an eight-foot (2.5-meter) square, white-painted pine structure that was at the south end of the gable of the small, stone-built house the lighthouse keeper barely towered over it. The cost of acquiring the land and the construction of the buildings amounted to around 3,000 US dollars .
In 1852 a fire destroyed this idiosyncratic structure, and in the following year it was replaced by a brick structure in a cylindrical tower that was directly connected to the lighthouse keeper's house. The installation of a fifth-order Fresnel lens followed in 1856, and 1888 saw the erection of a 1,000-pound fog bell and associated mechanics. Since 1887 there was a depot for buoys and other sea marks on the island, this was later relocated to Southwest Harbor, where there was also a coal bunker, where the ships required for this could be reloaded.
The years 1889 and 1890 brought a reconstruction of the entire complex, a 31 foot (approx. 9.4 meters) high, cylindrical tower was erected using the existing foundations. The house of the lighthouse keeper was rebuilt on the basis of a wooden frame construction, the same applies to the barn. The oil storage facility and the boathouse are more recent.
In 1981 the beacon was decommissioned and replaced by a flashing buoy, and in 1987 the area was handed over to the National Park Service , which manages it as part of Acadia National Park . The private organization Friends of Acadia carried out extensive renovation work in the following years, which among other things led to the resumption of the use of the beacon as a private navigation aid in 1989.
The site was leased by the National Park Service on a long-term lease to Martin Morad, a professor of medicine and pharmacology at Georgetown University , who is responsible for maintaining the buildings.
tourism
Although the site is publicly owned, it is leased and therefore inaccessible. The best view of Bear Island is offered by the daily mail boat or ferry between Northeast Harbor on Mount Desert Island and Spurling Point on Great Cranberry Island . Tour boats operate from Northeast Harbor and Southwest Harbor during the summer season.
The lighthouse is also visible from Maine State Highway 3 in a southerly direction.