Light Hearted ep 348 – Ilana Grallert, Head Harbour, Canada

Light Hearted ep 348 – Ilana Grallert, Head Harbour, Canada

Campobello Island is in southwestern New Brunswick, Canada, near the border with Maine. With trade, fishing, and shipbuilding flourishing on Campobello in the 1820s, it was decided that a lighthouse was needed. The lighthouse and the other station buildings were constructed in 1829 on a tiny island just offshore, accessible by land only at low tide. The 51-foot tower is one of the oldest surviving wooden lighthouses in North America. [https://news.uslhs.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Untitled-June-26-2026-at-15.48.47-1024x576.jpeg] The station remained staffed with resident keepers until its automation in 1986. A group called the Friends of the Head Harbour Lightstation was formed in 2000 to preserve the site and its history. Ilana Grallert is on the board of the Friends of the Head Harbour Lightstation and performs all kinds of functions for the group, as you’ll hear. Ilana was formerly a processing specialist at the special collections library of Dartmouth College. [https://news.uslhs.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/IMG_2325adj-1024x683.jpg]Head Harbour Light Station, New Brunswick, Canada. Photo by Jeremy D’Entremont.

Light Hearted Live #6 – Knotbrook Taylor’s Scottish lighthouse poems

Knotbrook Taylor is an award-winning poet who is originally from England and is now living in Scotland. The Museum of Scottish Lighthouses commissioned him to write a book of Scottish lighthouse poems in 2010, and he was the poet in residence for a time at the museum.  His experimental photography has also received wide acclaim. In this live stream episode Knotbrook reads a number of his poems about Scottish lighthouses and discusses his own experiences traveling the coasts of the UK. [https://news.uslhs.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Untitled-June-19-2026-at-15.25.51-1024x576.jpeg] The video can be seen here. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14M4GmRDhYk]

Light Hearted ep 347 – Nautical antiques expert Jim Claflin

[https://news.uslhs.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/23549-W.jpg] [https://news.uslhs.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/98248-1-1.jpg]Two of the ten books Jim Claflin has written. Jim Claflin, who is based in Massachusetts, is a recognized authority on antiques of the U.S. Lighthouse Service, Life-Saving Service, Revenue Cutter Service and early Coast Guard. Jim has specialized in antiques of this kind since the early 1990s. He is the owner of Kenrick A Claflin & Son Nautical Antiques, which has been in business since 1956. [https://news.uslhs.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Photo-3-1024x784.jpeg]You never know what you’ll find in the nautical antiques business. This is a rare U.S. Lighthouse Establishment brass toilet paper holder. Jim specializes in out-of-print books, documents, postcards, photographs, maps and charts, engravings, lithographs, uniforms and insignia, tools, lamps, lens apparatus, equipment and apparatus and much more. You can see his latest offerings at lighthouseantiques.net [http://lighthouseantiques.net]. He’s also the author of ten books on lighthouse and life saving history, and he has served as a volunteer “keeper” at Race Point Light Station on Cape Cod.

Light Hearted Lite 44 – Richard Cummins, Irish light keeper, part 2

[https://news.uslhs.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/69265947_123158975665643_5322708508431351808_n.jpg]Richard Cummins This is part two of a two part interview with Richard Cummins, a native of Ireland who worked as a lighthouse keeper in that country for a decade. This is an edited version of a conversation first heard on the podcast in 2020. Richard spent time as a keeper at the very famous Fastnet Rock Lighthouse; at Hook Head, one of the oldest operating lighthouses in the world; and some other well known light stations – more than 20 in all. [https://news.uslhs.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/71913431_137782917536582_204376370967478272_o.jpg]One of Richard’s ships in a bottle In this part of the interview we talk about what it was like to live at isolated lighthouses, and also about Richard’s more recent career as a photographer and an acclaimed builder of ships in bottles.

Light Hearted Live #5: Chris Hall and Tip Koehler, Seguin Island, ME

This is the audio from a live streaming episode on June 3, 2026. [https://news.uslhs.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/00175_n_9aeeg3wjf0052adj-1024x683.jpg]Seguin Light Station, photo by Jeremy D’Entremont Seguin Island Light Station is about two and a half miles off of the mouth of the Kennebec River in Maine. The establishment of a light station on Seguin was approved by president George Washington in 1793, and the buildings were completed in 1796. The 53-foot stone tower that still stands was constructed in 1857 along with a duplex keepers’ house. A new first-order Fresnel lens was installed, and that lens remains in operation today. The light was automated in 1985 and the keepers were removed. Concerned local citizens  founded the Friends of Seguin Island Light Station in 1986. In February 1998, under the Maine Lights Program, ownership of the property was transferred to the group. There are two guests in the episode. Chris Hall was the registrar and curator of exhibits at the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath and he’s now the historian for FOSILS. Tip Koehler is a retired Naval architect with 41 years in naval combatant design, manufacturing, and testing on Bath built ships. and is the vice president of the Friends of Seguin Island Light Station. Here is the live stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVyhelc12uo