Matane Lighthouse (Quebec, 1915).
Lighthouses have optical reflectors that concentrate the light from the lamp in a high-intensity beam. In early lighthouses, a catatropic reflector (parabolic mirror) was placed behind the lamp. The word “catatropic” comes from the Greek katoptron, meaning “mirror”. These reflectors, which were inexpensive, were used in Canadian lighthouses until the 1900s.
Eventually, they were replaced by the more effective dioptric reflectors (lens reflectors), which use lenses and prisms to intensify the light beam. The word comes from the Greek dioptrikê, meaning “to see through”.
Both these systems were fragile. In the morning, one of the first duties of the lighthouse keeper was to draw a curtain over the reflector or lens, in order to protect it from the sun's rays.
The Matane Lighthouse is 20.5m tall, and like several other lighthouses in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, it is made of precast iron. It was built in 1907, during William Patrick Anderson's directorship of the Lighthouse Board of Canada. Several lighthouses were built or rebuilt in the area during his term of office.
