The Stokes Bay Lighthouse – or at least part of it – is now in a new home safe and sound.
The Saturday helicopter lift of the top half of the lighthouse was successful as the winds died down long enough for the three part lift from Stokes Bay at the Black Creek Provincial Park near Ferndale.
A Sikorsky S-61 Helicopter hoisted the top half of the lighthouse high and carried it along the shoreline to the parking area of the park.
The chopper repeated this three times as each section weighed about 62-hundred pounds.
There were still winds off the lake the chopper had to contend with as well.
The undertaking of the project was huge according to Manager of Tourism for Bruce County Chris Hughes.
He had originally scheduled the lift for Friday but because of snowsqualls it was postponed until Saturday.
The lift was also videotaped by a second chopper that followed alongside to record the historic lift.
The pieces were loaded onto a flatbed and transported to the Bruce County Museum and Cultural Centre in Southampton.
It will be stored there and then decided where it will eventually rest — there has been discussion at the museum or at Fairy Lake.
This was an expensive venture with the total cost almost 40-thousand dollars.
The Nuclear Waste Management Organization donated 25-hundred dollars to offset ground transportation costs.
Edwards Aviation and Shell Canada donated a thousand litres of fuel for the helicopter and the rest was covered by the County of Bruce and the Coast Guard.
The 103 year old structure took about two hours to move in total.