In my years on the lights there was always talk of finding a glass ball. The inside lights such as my first one at Pulteney Point did not have too much chance of stopping a floating glass ball because of the strong tides.
My first outside light [not sheltered by land] was Quatsino but with only one beach at the back of the island and all the rest rocky it was nigh on impossible. Pachena wasn’t much better and we weren’t there long enough to hit the beaches around the area. Green Island was like Pulteney but we did find one or two there sitting in the pools.
So a real outside light was needed, and one was waiting!
Our 14 ft. Zodiac with stowable sail - photo John Coldwell
We moved to McInnes Island in 1977 and in the next couple of years we outfitted a fourteen (14) foot (4.27 m) Zodiac with a 25 HP Evinrude outboard with which we could go beachcombing. The children were still young then (see photo left) so a lot of the beachcombing was done alone with not much luck. Oh, I found a couple but nothing big. Then a friend came up and he found a larger one – about 12 inches (30.5 cms) in diameter along with a couple of small ones. Continue reading Glass Balls – The Dream of Every Beachcomber→
– Roger Mogg (Assistant keeper on McInnes Island 1983 – 1987)
Airchime horns - photo Chris Mills
Back in the early 1980’s I was offered the job as a assistant lightkeeper at McInnes Island. I was told at the time that this offer was only for couples, not for singles (this turned out to be false information). I had just broken up with my long term girlfriend so assumed I would have to decline the offer.
At the last moment I happened to meet a girl named Liz Robertson, and she seemed like the outdoors kind of person that one would have to be to enjoy life at a lightstation. After hardly enough time to know her first we agreed to go to start life as lightkeepers at one of the more remote stations in British Columbia.
Coast Guard took us there in one of their lighthouse tenders (ships) that also doubled as an icebreaker. After the ship refueled each and every station on the way up from Victoria , we finally arrived at McInnes Island, one of the most scenic places on the planet earth.
We were real busy the first day as you can imagine. Unpacking all of our belongings, opening up house windows that had been sealed for years with paint, trying to learn weather transmissions, and generaly getting to know how the station operated.
Looks like it just landed
One of Liz’s prized possesions was this cat of hers that was as black as charcoal. John Coldwell the senior keeper was giving me the grand tour of the station and we were in the radio room teaching me how to test the foghorns. Now these foghorms were massive things designed to be heard at sea for several miles in heavy weather (banks of grey painted Airchime horns facing south into the sun and open sea – ed.).
At this time Liz came running up in a big panic and said that she had just witnessed something black shoot out of one of the foghorns at high speed. We went to investigate and found her cat maybe fifty meters away shaking like something out of a bad cartoon. The cat must have climbed inside one of the foghorns because they were a warm place to take a nap. We never saw the cat go within eyesite of those foghorns again.
[audio:Pulteney_Point_2X_Electronic_Airchime.mp3|titles=Pulteney Point Electronic Airchime]
With credit to Robbie Burns for the title quote I will tell a tale of woe that I heard many years ago about the Green Island lightkeepers and how they had run out of tobacco (a common occurence on the lighthouses) and the keepers had pooled their money to charter a float plane from Prince Rupert, 25 miles (15.5 kms) away, to bring some more cigarettes and tobacco out to the lighthouse.
It should be easy, eh? - photo Ray McKenzie
The small float plane arrived with the cargo on board and circled the island a few times, tipping his wings as he spotted the keepers standing outside waving. But alas, he radioed the keepers that because of the outflow northeast winds from Portland Canal he could not land on the ocean as requested, but, if the keepers wanted to take the risk, he could could fly over the island and drop the package from the cockpit window. Continue reading The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men . . .→
Quarters and Rations (Q&R), seen on many Canadian government employee pay cheques as Q – R IN KIND is also know as Rations and Quarters (R&Q) in the Canadian military.
It is a topic over which I fought against the Coast Guard bureaucracy my whole working life. I wanted it defined for the lighthouse keeper!
It is paid – why can the keepers not have the benefits? When I was working I had the personnel office in Prince Rupert in a turmoil. I even filed a grievance with the Union, and all the bigwigs in Vancouver could not find out what our benefits were and said let it drop.
When I worked for the government in the north of Canada, and today on many postings where government personnel – police, military, weather observers, ships crews, radio operators, airport personnel, etc. are sent into isolation to do work for the government, they are given Q&R benefits. (Is anybody missing from this list? Please contact me and let me know.) Continue reading Quarters and Rations (Q&R)→
page 1 of H. F. Chamberlin letter letter courtesy of Zellie Chamberlin Sale
Howard Frazer Chamberlin was on Nootka lighthouse in 1942 according to the interview by the Naval Reserve (see letters at left). But there is a problem here.
When I received a copy of this letter I thought it was referring to the attack on Estevan Point which supposedly helped introduce conscription in Canada during the Second World War. But if you check the dates, this seems to have occured almost a month later to the day that the Estevan Point shelling happened. According to all records, the shelling of Estevan Point took place nightfall of June 20, 1942.
page 2 of H. F. Chamberlin letter letter courtesy of Zellie Chamberlin Sale
This letter seems to show that there was another attack at Nootka lighthouse about a month later on the evening of July 18, 1942. In fact the lightkeeper states that he phoned Estevan Point Wireless station to see if they were being plastered again! (my emphasis – JC) But Estevan returned the call and said that they had heard nothing so it must have been nearer Nootka. From working with explosives in mining and prospecting, Howard Chamberlin knew the difference between industrial explosives and high-explosives.
The only thing that appears to be at odds here is that he feels the vibration from the explosions as from underwater. I wonder if he was hearing depth charges going off? This is just one month later than the Estevan incident. I will bet that the Navy and the Naval Reserve were on high alert during this time and expecting the worse. Perhaps a floating log triggered the release of a few depth charges.
A transcript of the original letter(s) follows:
From H.M.C.S. “Pryer” To COAV Esquimalt BC Nootka Lighthouse 2200 / 19 / 7 / 42 Subject Interview With Mr. H. F. Chamberlin, Lightkeeper
I was sitting in the kitchen of the Light house, overlooking the sea, and having a cup of Tea at 1902 hours July 18/42, when I both felt and heard an explosion from a southerly direction. (out to sea) and this was followed by six other shocks at intervals of about one (1) minute between shocks. I was naturally surprised and could see the vibrations from the shocks in the cup of Tea. As an old Miner and Prospector I can easily tell the difference between “blasting” and “submarine” shocks, and the shock I both heard and felt were definitely from seaward, and from the “feel” of the vibration I would say from underwater. The first shock occured at 1902 and the last shock at 1911, as I noted the time of last shock. I phoned the wireless station at Estevan Point and asked them if they had been “plastered” again, and they informed me that they had felt or heard nothing. It was at 1915 when I phoned Estevan Pt. Wireless.
Page 2 (same as Page 1 but with signature at bottom)
Witness Chief Skipper J. D. McPhee, R.C.N.R. Commanding Officer H.M.C.S. “Pryer”
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– Howard F. Chamberlin (Lightkeeper on Nootka 1936 – 1941)
– Norma (Kinnear) Money and Willa (Kinnear) Studiner (daughters of William Norman Kinnear, Senior Keeper on Langara 1943 – 1945)
Original interview from the Pine Tree Line1 website which is now hosted on this site.
The duplex – light tower barely visible on right side
Comments by Ren L’Ecuyer 2 – The Kinnear family lived at the lighthouse complex on Langara Island in the 1943-1945 time period. I was fortunate to communicate with Norma Kinnear in February 2004. I had requested her assistance in trying to recreate what once existed at Langara Island. The following detail is a series of questions and answers – all of which provide additional information on what occurred at Langara Island during this period of time.
Q#1 – Can you please provide the names of your parents, your sister and yourself? I assume there were just two children when you went to Langara Island.
A#1 – Father: William Norman Kinnear. Mother: Doris May Kinnear. Sisters: Willa Margaret Kinnear and Norma Kathleen Kinnear.
Q#2 – How old were you and your sister when you arrived at Langara Island?
A#2 – My sister (Willa) was seven and I was eight.
Q#3 – Was Langara Island the first location for your father as a light keeper?
What a convenience! What an expense! What a frustration!
Radio telephone
Anyone who has used a radio-telephone on the BC coast will agree with me. It was great to have semi-private communications rather than using the government-installed ALAN (Automated Lightstation Alarm Network) phone which was not private, and also broke down. It was expensive to have a privately owned radio-telephone but so nice to be in contact with the rest of the world.
But sometimes this convenience just added a few more gray hairs to my head. Here’s one example of a conversation! (there are probably many more if anyone wants to add one)
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[heard over the radio-telephone speaker, a ringing sound of a telephone as I keyed the microphone (pressed the press-to-talk (PTT) button to get contact with an operator)]
Operator: Swindle Island [our normal Telus stand-by channel to receive/place phone calls]
Myself: Hello operator, this is McInnes Island . May I have privacy please.
[“privacy” allowed us to have some modicum of secrecy on the radio-telephone line as it blanked out our side of the conversation to other listeners so they could not hear our registration number or other personal details e.g. bank account numbers, etc.] Continue reading Radiotelephone Frustration – McInnes Island c. 1970s – 2000→
– Rand Grant (relief keeper on Triple Island June – July 1978)
Melville Island - looking NW from Triple - photo Rand Grant (Flickr)
The story is in reference to the photo at right, Rand writes:
The large Island is Melville. Prince Rupert lies just beyond this. The tanker is on it’s way into Prince Rupert Port. One of the deepest and busiest on the west coast of British Columbia.
One evening back in ’78 [while stationed on Triple Island], I noticed an Alaskan Cruise ship on it’s way by. I walked up to the roof; it was a beautiful summer evening; I was curious, so started waving my arms over my head, back and forth. I actually witnessed that ship light-up with so many flash-bulbs that it made me laugh. Continue reading Do You Have a Photo of Me Mid-1978?→
In July 1942, seventeen (17) years before the present lighthouse at Cape Scott was lit, the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) established a radio detection finding (RDF) transmitter and receiver at the point. Work was started in July 1942 and the station was online in December 1942. It continued in operation until September 1945. (please see reference notes below).
Ernest J. Ferguson
Late in 2005 the lighthouse keeper at Cape Scott, Harvey Humchitt, received an inquiry from Ernest J. Ferguson who was reminiscing about his earlier life and wanted to visit Cape Scott, his old haunt from 1942. He was a well-retired RCAF Pilot Officer who started on Cape Scott in July 1942 as a Leading Aircraftman (LAC).
In his email he wished to visit the area once more but Coast Guard would not permit it because of his age (he was 85 years old this year [2006]). Since then he has written Harvey and myself and given us a few black and white photos and stories of his time setting up No. 10 Radio Detachment on Cape Scott. Continue reading Cape Scott Before the Lighthouse 1942 – 1943→
– Denice Goudie (grandaughter of Henry Edward Brown, Senior Keeper on Porlier Pass 1949 – 1965)
Please go to the Porlier Pass lighthouse website, a project of Dennice Goudie, and read the rest of her account and recollections of life at Porlier Pass and a history of her grandfather.
Building on Race Point demolished in 1996 - photo - Chris Mills
Grandfather of this researcher Denice Goudie, Henry Edward Brown (November 29, 1899 – September 27, 1974) served as lighthouse keeper at Porlier Pass between 1949 and 1965 which was established 15 November 1902; automated April 1996.
Every summer and most school holidays of my memory were spent at the north end of Galiano Island. At first in the house which stood further up the hill; lit by coal oil lamps, outhouse, water by bucket from the cistern and after that house burned down a 3 bedroom house that can be viewed from Virago Point Light, looking toward Race Point. Continue reading Porlier Pass Lighthouse 1949 – 1965→
did not have too much chance of stopping a floating glass ball because of the strong tides.
Quarters and Rations (Q&R), seen on many Canadian government employee pay cheques as 
