A retired Pictou County teacher is just finishing up his own personal homework assignment.

Fergie Mackay has gathered photos and information about the Pictou Bar lighthouse that's been gone for more than a decade, but is not forgotten.

The retired teacher has been drawn to the subject, since childhood.

“You'd go the lighthouse and sometimes there would be people there,” Mackay said. “Some were swimming. At times I was there when the lighthouse keepers were there. It was always a treat to go in the house. They were very hospitable people.”

The first Pictou light was built in 1834 -- 33 years before Confederation.

That presented a small challenge when tracking down historical documents.

Any of the early records, you would have to go to the provincial records for the beginnings of it, and then, after 1867, you would go to the sessional papers in Ottawa or wherever the sessional papers would be available.

Pictou Harbour has always been a busy waterway, and the lighthouse was a vital transportation and safety link.

Building it on a sandy beach, meant extra safety measures were needed.

They built a big cribwork along the front on the Northumberland Strait and this protected the normal tides, the normal high tides and so on but, when a storm came, it sometimes moved the lighthouse itself.

The first lighthouse burned down in a fire back in 1903.

A century later, the second one was also lost to fire in July of 2004.

Fire trucks could not be driven on the beach to reach the burning structure.

In less than an hour, all that remained were memories.

“(I) really miss the old lighthouse and I think everybody does as well,” Mackay said. “There was a time at first that they thought it was going to be rebuilt, but I think when a lighthouse burns, or is destroyed, they just don't replace them anymore.”

A metal navigation tower now stands, where once, the old lighthouse was a beacon to all vessels passing by.

Mackay is hoping to someday turn his research into a book. In the meantime, he'll be at the Museum Of Natural History in Halifax on Thursday, to give a talk about the Pictou Bar lighthouse.

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Dan MacIntosh.