In December 2011 I received a Guestbook entry from a Scottish ex-lighthouse keeper who said “I was made redundant from the service in 1992 and the last Keeper retired from the service in 1998 . . .” His name is Peter Hill and he has written a few poems about his life and also a book. The poem I like the best is reproduced below.
Peter was a keeper in Scotland and I was a keeper in Canada, and we have never met before, but he wrote in the poem below:
“I dress in darkness yet know my style, my clothes on dresser neatly piled.”
Now only a lighthouse keeper would write about this fact about dressing in the darkness to go on the morning shift. I did the same thing, as it allows our eyes to adjust to the darkness so we can see better before going outside to observe the weather for the upcoming weather report.
I hope you enjoy the poem as much as I did.
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The Lighthouse Keeper – A day in the Life
In softest echo and muffled beep, I am awakened from my shallow sleep Anticipating that very call! It’s a wonder how I sleep at all Accustomed and by ritual seed refreshed in body by slumbers need My motions slow and gentle take, while sleeping Mags, am careful not to awake I dress in darkness yet know my style, my clothes on dresser neatly piled. Shirt and jumper left till last, washed and ready for my watch.
No, the title does not mean I have gone a wee bit balmy. This article is about finding things but not on the beach. It is also not really about lighthouses, but does take place on, or near a lighthouse where my wife Karen and I were first stationed.
When I saw the photo below it brought back many memories of our first lighthouse at Pulteney Point, Malcolm Island.
Pulteney Point lighthouse is located between Port McNeil and Port Hardy on Vancouver Island, British Columbia (see map below). It is still manned.
In 1901 Finnish settlers made Malcolm Island their home – see a short version of the story here.
Pulteney Point
When we arrived at the lighthouse in 1969 there were still traces of the settlements visible in the woods between the lighthouse and the town of Sointula. Old buildings, parts of wharves, chimneys, rusting appliances and farm implements. One needed a boat to explore most of them as there were no usable trails through the woods – at least none that were usable now.
But out behind the lighthouse there was a trail leading into the woods along the beach on the northwest side leading to a small creek that flowed into the ocean where the lightkeepers used to pump water to the station for drinking water. Part way along the trail were a couple of old buildings we were told housed the early settlers.
Having explored many ruins and old townsites on Vancouver Island before moving onto the lights we thought we were pretty expert at finding old souvenirs, bottles, etc.
Armed with shovel, trowel and a few sacks we headed out one day to explore the ruins. We knew we were probably not the first ones to explore the site, but hoped that our expertise would prevail and we would find what they had not.
First, we had been told many years earlier, look for a garbage dump. By now that would have been overgrown, so we looked for any hump that was off to the side of the property and away from the main house.
our find, like the bottle on the left
We did find and excavate a couple of likely spots, but found nothing that resembled what we were looking for. We searched through both buildings – one a house, and the other outbuilding, probably a sauna – hey, it was a Finnish homestead, so why not?
After hours of searching we found one small Vaseline bottle which had turned purple in the sun. Heading home proudly with our find, we showed it off to the other family at the lighthouse.
We completely forgot about the episode until about a year later when a boat with strangers arrived at the station. The two men and two women explained that they had been exploring the old Finnish homesteads for souvenirs and asked if it would be okay to look around out back as they had been told there was a homestead there as well.
Walter Tansky, the senior keeper, said there was no problem as all the property behind the lighthouse was Crown Land. I was wondering how long they would be there before they discovered that there was nothing significant there.
After a couple of hours they had not returned. I got curious and wandered back there to see what was taking so much of their time. Upon arriving at the site I saw that the floorboards had been torn up, and there was a pile of old bottles sitting off to one side.
How? Where? What . . .? I was speechless. Where did all these bottles come from?
So after getting over my shock, I asked some questions. It turns out they had found what they thought was the kitchen by probing. Probing involves the use of a spring steel probe about 1/4″ in diameter and about 4 feet long. It usually has a metal or wood T-handle. This is pushed into the earth to locate buried objects like metal and glass.
Under the floor in the kitchen they found most of the bottles. They assumed that a wood shelf had collapsed onto the rotten floor and carried its load of bottle with it. Some were broken, but most were in very good condition because they had not been moved since the early 1900s.
So this was not beachcombing, and I could not call it landcombing, but we sure did learn a lot about bottle scavenging.
One early morning I was out on the water trolling for salmon from my 12 foot (4 metre) aluminum boat. The sun was just rising and I had just completed and transmitted my first weather of the morning. By the time I had a coffee ready, loaded rods and lures into the boat and lowered the boat into the water via the highline it was probably about 04:30.
At the time I did not have the money for a gas outboard so was using 12 volt Evinrude 2HP electric motor for trolling. Becauseof winds and tide this was only good on a a flat calm day which this was. As the sun rose it became warmer and I could see better. Behind me in Catala Passage the water began to boil and the herring gulls started to appear from nowhere. It was a herring ball!1 (a.k.a. bait ball as there are many types of small fish that ball up when attacked) Continue reading Killer Whale Attack at McInnes Island Lighthouse!→
On one of our beachcombing trips Roger Mogg and I headed up this narrow deep inlet on the East side of Price Island, just a few kilometres from McInnes Island Lighthouse. (see interactive map above – red marker is McInnes Island; Price Island is NE a bit and labelled as such) Continue reading Death on Price Island→
In late [27th] May of 1990, the container vessel Hansa Carrier encountered a severe storm in the north Pacific Ocean (approx. 48°N, 161°W) on its passage from Korea to the United States.
During the storm, a large wave washed twenty-one (21) forty foot (40 ft.) shipping containers overboard. See this video of damaged cargo ships and cargo being lost.
Five of these 20-metre containers held a shipment of approximately 80,000 Nike® shoes ranging from children’s shoes to large hiking boots. It has been estimated that four of the five containers opened into the stormy waters, releasing over 60,000 shoes into the north Pacific Ocean.
This one looks a bit rough
That winter of 1990, hundreds of these shoes washed ashore on the beaches of the Queen Charlotte Islands , western Vancouver Island , Washington and Oregon.
After hearing of the accident, oceanic scientist Curtis C. Ebbesmeyer seized the opportunity and established links with beachcombers and formed a network of people reporting the landfall of the contents of this spill.
When Oregon newspapers began running the story, the Associated Press picked it up, and the word spread. The publicity resulted in many additional reports of the finding of Nike shoes on Pacific beaches. Dubious about some of the reported finds, Ebbesmeyer decided to confine his study to only those shoes found in groups of 100 or more. Even with this restriction, he accounted for approximately 1300 shoes from the more than 60,000 released.
Despite a year in the ocean, much of the footwear was in fine shape and wearable after a washing. Unfortunately, the shoes were not tied to one another so that matching pairs did not always reach the beach together.
“I remember this very well as I could never find a matching pair!” – retlkpr
Each shoe, however, had an identifying serial number, and with information obtained from the manufacturer, Ebbesmeyer was able to determine that the shoes were indeed from the Hansa Carrier.
Drift bottle
The accident turned into a scientific gold mine. With information on the locations where the shoes were found, Curtis Ebbesmeyer and Jim Ingraham were able to use the spill to test and calibrate their ocean current model. In the past when researchers have released a multitude of drift bottles1 to provide data for testing models, only about one or two percent of the drift bottles are typically recovered. Thus, the accidental release of approximately 61,000 shoes and the recovery of approximately 1600 shoes (2.6%) provided data as good as any pre-planned study.
Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham used the OSCURS (Ocean Surface Currents Simulation) computer simulation model to determine where and how the shoes may have drifted after the containers were swept overboard.
The model suggested that the main landfall would have been around the northern tip of Vancouver Island and the central coast of British Columbia approximately 249 days after the spill.
The first reports of shoe landfalls came from Vancouver Island and Washington approximately 220 days after the spill. A large number of shoes were recovered in the Queen Charlotte Islands and northern Oregon suggesting that when the shoes neared the North American coast some were diverted north and others south by coastal currents.
In the summer of 1992 (two years after the incident), shoes were reported arriving at the northern end of the Island of Hawaii. After reaching North America these shoes may have continued southward along the California coast and then been pushed off the coast by currents moving westward to Hawaii.
The rest of the story is on the website of Keith C. Heidorn (aka the Weather Doctor).
– Narrated by Sharlene Macintosh with help from her cousin Zellie Chamberlin Sale (granddaughters of Howard Frazer Chamberlin, lighthouse keeper c. 1930 – 1941)
Nootka Light -photo - Bill Maximick of Maximick Originals
My grandfather was Howard Frazer Chamberlin who was lightkeeper at a few lighthouses around Vancouver Island – Nootka , Pine Island , Quatsino , Trial Island come to mind – my Mom knows them all. His brother, Charles Benjamin Chamberlin was also assistant at Nootka.
My Mom, Mina Peet (née Chamberlin) was born in Oct 1933 while her Dad was a lightkeeper. He originally did various jobs such as farming, prospecting, trapping, and logging with horses. He had a sawmill at Coombs, BC and he was injured while logging with horses on Vancouver Island. He was put into hospital where he met my grandmother Dora Anna Wordsell who was a nurse.
They married December 12, 1928 in Nanaimo, BC. They had three daughters: Connie (who died in 1985), Pearl, and Mina. The first child, a son, died up near Prince Rupert, BC right after birth, so my grandmother was sent the next time to New Westminster, BC to give birth (at a real hospital) where her parents lived, and the second two times to Victoria, BC. Continue reading Howard Frazer Chamberlin Family Adventures c.1930s→
I came across this article that shows the life on an Australian lighthouse starting in 1971. A wee bit different than Canada I must say.
What got my attention were the requirements for a lighthouse keeper:
The job requirements of a lighthouse keeper were a car licence, an ability to climb to heights and an ability to get along with the other lighthouse keeper . . .
The article is worth reading to illustrate the differences between Canadian and Australian lights (wildlife, for one), plus, on the page is a reference and a link to an ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) website which is exploring some of Australia’s iconic lighthouses.
This new site is called Shining a Light and is an excellent documentary on some of Australia’s lighthouses. The map above shows the lighthouses mentioned.
Merry Christmas to all my readers and their families. I hope that Christmas brings you all a very happy time, and that the New Year of 2012 is fantastic!
As a Christmas gift to me, please pass along the address of this webpage lighthousememories.ca to all your friends and family and work associates.
Thank you, and Merry Christmas!
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Remember the lighthouse keepers – they are on duty for you 24/7, just like police, firemen, air traffic controllers, and numerous other essential services.
– Betty Healey (Wife of Arthur Healey – Officer-in-Charge (OIC) Pachena Point Radio station (VAD) 1949 – 1955) – forward by editor Tom Racine (from his website History of Spectrum Management in Canada)
D.O.T.’er Arthur Healey was officer-in-charge at Pachena Point Marine Radio Station from 1949 to 1955. With his wife Betty and three children, Ann, John and Michael who were then 12, 8 and 7 years of age respectively, he spent six years at this isolated post. He went from there to Alert Bay and last summer took over as officer-in-charge at Victoria Marine Radio.
Access to Pachena Radio, which was closed down in 1958 after 45 years of operation, was by lighthouse tender, or Bamfield lifeboat, and then by workboat through the surf to the bonnet-sling; then highline up the cliff. If one was a good hiker, it was possible to trek the nine miles from Bamfield to Pachena, and that was how the Healey’s first got there.
Today, living once again in a large urban community, Mrs. Healey recalls the rewarding experiences shared by the family during that six year period. The children are now young adults: Ann is married and the mother of four children; John received a Bachelor of Education degree last year and is now teaching at Burns Lake, B.C., and Michael, working towards a Master’s degree in zoology at UBC, plans to go to Europe for Ph.D. studies. Continue reading A Posting to Isolation – Pachena Pt. 1949 – 1955→
– Roy Carver (son of C. E. Carver on Kains Island November 1933 – July 1944)
Roy Carver told me he “was born at the Bancroft Nursing Home at 705 Cook Street in Victoria, BC in mid 1930s. This nursing home was set up for expectant mothers that lived in out of the way places with no doctors, like his mother Evelyn Carver. They could come to the home a month before the due date and stay a few days or a week before returning home.”
Quatsino Lightstation c. 1930s - photo BC Archives
And Roy definitely did live in an out of the way place with his parents, and later his sister. His father was Clarence Edgar Carver who was the principal lightkeeper, fog alarm operator and radio beacon operator on Quatsino Lighthouse (aka Kains Island) during the period 1933 to 1944. Kains Island is located far up the western side of Vancouver Island on Quatsino sound. Nearest neighbours were six (6) miles (9.7 kilometers) away at the small fishing village of Winter Harbour. Continue reading Life on Kains Island 1933 – 1944→
