Light Hearted

This is the audio from the Light Hearted Live episode of September 9. The guest is the acclaimed maritime historian and author Eric Jay Dolin. Eric grew up near the beaches of New York and Connecticut, and from an early age he was fascinated by the ocean. He earned a masters degree in environmental management from Yale, then a Ph.D. in environmental policy and planning from MIT. Eric has written 17 books and many articles on American history. His books include Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America; Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America; Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic History of America’s Most Notorious Pirates; and A Furious Sky The Five-Hundred-Year History of America’s Hurricanes. His books have won many awards. Eric’s book Brilliant Beacons: A History of the American Lighthouse is discussed in this interview. Sea History Magazine called it “A must-read for anyone interested in lighthouses or America’s maritime history…This history of American lighthouses is both engaging and enjoyable.”

Ed Metcalf is from Winthrop, Massachusetts, on the north side of Boston Harbor. He served as a police officer in Winthrop, and he then worked for the Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. He became the game warden on Nantucket, Massachusetts, in 1974, and he still lives there today. Born in 1933, his memories reach back to the late 1930s. Some of his visits to the harbor islands were guided by the popular historian and author Edward Rowe Snow. He also frequented lighthouses in the harbor in the 1950s and ’60s, including Deer Island Light and Graves Light. He often brought newspapers, fish, and other things to the keepers. Deer Island, which is attached to Winthrop, was also home to a prison for many years. Ed also remembers visits to the range lights at Spectacle Island in the inner harbor before they were demolished in the 1950s. 

This is an edited version of an interview with Jem Finer that was first heard in June 2020. In an area of London known as the Docklands is a part of the waterfront known as the Trinity Buoy Wharf. On the wharf is London’s only lighthouse. The lighthouse at the Trinity Buoy Wharf was never used for navigation. Completed in 1866, it was used by Trinity House for the training of prospective lighthouse keepers. The scientist Michael Faraday also carried out experiments there. Musician and composer Jem Finer has repurposed the lighthouse in a unique way. His ambient sound piece called Longplayer started playing in the lighthouse at the stroke of midnight just as the year 2000 began. It’s been playing ever since, and the intention is that it won’t repeat until midnight on December 31, 2999. Longplayer is composed for singing bowls, a type of ancient bell. Click here to listen to Longplayer

Lake Sunapee covers more than 4,000 acres in west-central New Hampshire, adjacent to Mount Sunapee State Park. The lake contains 11 islands and three lighthouses, which were built in the late 1800s during the steamboat era on the lake. A number of large resort hotels and private estates lined the lake’s shores in that era. Today, the three lighthouses are maintained by the Lake Sunapee Protective Association, or LSPA. The organization, founded in 1898, is dedicated to preserving and enhancing the environmental integrity of the Lake Sunapee Region. Our guest, Midge Eliassen, is a past president of the LSPA. She’s been a photojournalist and she continues to capture the beauty of Lake Sunapee and its wildlife in her photography. Her extensive water sampling on the lake has been praised by Dartmouth College and others, and the LSPA awards a fellowship for lake research in Midge’s name. Midge was the recipient of the 2018 John F. Morten Award for Exemplary Lake Stewardship.

This episode features edited audio from our “Light Hearted Live” episode of August 19. Our guest, Anastasia Makarova, is from Russia and now lives in Slovenia. She is a lighthouse tour guide, club founder, writer, lecturer, and magazine editor – among other things! She’s also a singer, songwriter, and guitarist who has recorded four albums. One of Anastasia’s current projects is the development of an online museum devoted to Augustin Fresnel and his lenses that were used in lighthouses all over the world. You can see the entire live stream video from August 19 on our YouTube channel. Hug a Lighthouse!