The federal government has been preparing to sell almost 1,000 lighthouses peppered across the country.

But many of those beacons aren't the government's to sell, says the group overseeing operations on an island in British Columbia where one of those lighthouses sits.

At issue is who holds the rights to the land — the respective provinces or the federal government.

The lighthouse at Race Rocks is located one nautical mile below the southernmost tip of Vancouver Island, and was built by the Royal Navy in 1860.