Description of Historic Place

Wrights Front Range Lighthouse is a 3.7 metres (12 feet) tapered, wooden tower designed to guide vessels into Victoria Harbour from the Northumberland Strait. The lighthouse stands in an open field on a point known locally as “Paul’s Bluff” situated approximately 1 kilometre southwest of Victoria, Prince Edward Island.

Heritage Value

The Wrights Front Range Lighthouse is a heritage lighthouse because of its historical, architectural, and community values.

Historical values
Wrights Front Range Lighthouse is a very good example of the development of the aids to navigation system in Prince Edward Island. It is one of a pair of Wrights Range lighthouses and one of six range lighthouses near Victoria Harbour, all dating to the mid-to-late 19th century. It stands as an example of the second generation of lighthouses built in PEI in the era after Confederation. The lighthouse is named for its original keeper Charles L. Wright, on whose land it was built. The lighthouse supported Victoria Harbour’s role as a key shipping outlet for the southwestern part of the island. In 1986 the lighthouse was moved a short distance due to shoreline erosion.

Architectural values
Wrights Front Range Lighthouse is quite short and possesses a rare design in which there is no lantern, with the light instead being visible from a window which faces seaward. There is no gallery. This design grants the structure an eccentric and truncated appearance. This so-called pepper-pot form was favoured as towers of this kind were economical to construct and easy to maintain. The lack of a separate lantern is unusual. It is notable for this distinctive attribute and its use of the traditional red and white Canadian lighthouse colours.

Community values
Wrights Front Range Lighthouse reinforces the maritime character of its surroundings. Although outside the formal boundaries of the community, the lighthouse is associated with the community of Victoria. Part of a pair of range lights, it is also one of a broader ensemble of range lighthouses and lights associated with Victoria and its maritime history.

Related buildings
No related buildings are included in the designation.

Character-Defining Elements

The following character-defining elements of the Wrights Front Range Lighthouse should be respected:

— its location southwest of Victoria, Prince Edward Island;
— its intact, as-built structural wood form, height, square footprint and tapered profile, and balanced proportions;
— its traditional red and white exterior colour scheme, consisting of a white tower as well as a red roof and red accents;
— its exterior walls covered with wood shingle;
— its sole entry doorway topped by a shed roof;
— its unusual lack of a separate lantern with the light visible through a sea-facing window;
— its pyramidal roof;
— the smoke jack (or smoke head) at the apex of the tower;
— its visual prominence in relation to the water and the landscape.