Historic Sites of Manitoba: Beaconia Cairn (RM of St. Clements)

This monument in the village of Beaconia, in the Rural Municipality of St. Clements, commemorates a Danish immigrant named August Larson who, around 1896, settled in a cove behind an island on the southeast shore of Lake Winnipeg, later named Balsam Bay. He shipped wood by barge down the lake and along the Red River. Needing a means of finding his way home in the dark, he built a beacon on the lakeshore, lit by fish oil. When the Canadian Northern Railway reached the area in 1900, it named the station near here for Larson’s beacon.

Beaconia Cairn (December 2011) Source: Gordon Goldsborough Site Location (lat/long): N50.44502, W96.55666 denoted by symbol on the map above

Sources:

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Page revised: 30 December 2011

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