For those of you that do not know, MCTS (Marine Communications and Traffic Services) is “the Branch of the Canadian Coast Guard that provides communications and vessel traffic services to the sea-going public”.
“MCTS monitors for distress radio signals; provides the communications link between vessels in distress and the JRCC/MRSC; sends safety information; handles public communication; and, regulates the flow of vessel traffic in some areas. MCTS is an important link in the SAR system”.
This song is from the album Undun by the Roots. It is called Lighthouse. The words to the chorus are interesting. Imagine lying in the ocean and seeing a lighthouse nearby and no one sees you because it is unmanned! Imagine the feeling of fear! Think automation? Unmanning lighthouses?
No one’s in the lighthouse You’re face down in the ocean And no one’s in the lighthouse And it seems like you just screamed It’s no one there to hear the sound And it may feel like there’s no one there That cares if you drown Face down in the ocean
The rest of the lyrics can be found here. The video below is just the song as it is sung by the group. I think you must hear it a couple of times to get the meaning of the song. I know I did.
[Hook: Dice Raw] No one’s in the lighthouse You’re face down in the ocean And no one’s in the lighthouse And it seems like you just screamed It’s no one there to hear the sound And it may feel like there’s no one there That cares if you drown Face down in the ocean
[Verse 2: Black Thought] After the love is lost Friendship dissolves And even blood is lost Where did it begin The way we did each other wrong Troubled water neither one of us could swim across I stopped holding my breath Now I am better off There without a trace And you in my head All the halted motion of a rebel without a pause What it do is done till you dead and gone The grim reaper telling me to swim deeper Where the people go to lo and behold the soul keeper I’m not even breaking out in a sweat Or cold fever but I’m never paying up on my debt or tolls either I’ll leave the memories here I won’t need them If I stop thinking and lie, now that’s freedom Your body’s part of the Maritime museum Face down in the past is where I’m being Lyrics provided by http://www.kovideo.net/ Source – http://www.kovideo.net/lighthouse-lyrics-roots-1266459.html
[Hook: Dice Raw] And no one’s in the lighthouse You’re face down in the ocean And no one’s in the lighthouse And it seems like you just screamed It’s no one there to hear the sound And it may feel like there’s no one there That cares if you drown Face down in the ocean
[Outro: Dice Raw] If you can’t swizzim then ya bound to drizzown Passing out life jackets bout to go didown Get down with the captain or go down with the ship Before the dark abyss I’m gon’ hit you wit’ dis (Repeat)
Environment Canada (EC) has a cooperative/volunteer climate network weather collection project called COOLTAP.(Cooperative Online Temperature and Precipitation Entry System). It is a web-based Data entry system website where daily weather data is entered and used. All that is required is an internet-connected computer to input the data.
NOAA (USA) uses a similar data collection program called COOP Here is a PDF file on NOAA, COOP and the integration of COOLTAP. This data is used for both weather forecasting/climate prognosis and drought control.
Weather box, aka Stevenson Screen, used to record temperatures
British Columbia lighthouse keepers, as employees in the Pacific and Yukon Region (PYR) of Environment Canada also work in this program as well as performing their many other duties. Continue reading COOLTAP→
The following article by Bella Bathhurst from the Notting Hill Editions Journal was passed to me by a BC lightkeeper. It was so well written I asked permission to reprint it here. Pay special attention to the author’s reasons for keeping lighthouses.
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Don’t Let the Lighthouses go Dark by Bella Bathhurst – published November 10, 2011
We are jettisoning lighthouses at our peril, writes Bella Bathurst, a lighthouse historian. Even in the age of GPS, they remain immensely useful, and retain deep symbolic power.
Twelve years ago, I wrote a book called The Lighthouse Stevensons about the construction of the lights around the Scottish coastline by Robert Louis Stevenson’s family. I was lucky to arrive at exactly the right moment. In 1999, the last of the British lights were being automated and the few remaining keepers were disappearing towards extinction. The men I spoke to were mostly at or near retirement age anyway; most saw the logic of their own removal even if they weren’t persuaded by its effects. At the beginning of the third millennium, you don’t need three grown men to change a lightbulb. But what none of those last keepers would ever have understood or sanctioned was the idea of the lights themselves being switched off.
The Skerryvore Lighthouse, 10 miles south-west of Tiree, in the Hebrides
The following article appeared in 2010 and I received permission to publish it here to show the work that lighthouse keepers do, but is not part of their job description.
This is why we need lighthouse keepers! Keep the lights manned!
Another Chrome Island rescue appeared here on my website.
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Chrome Island - photo Leslie Williamson
Lighthouse keepers key in two rescues – with permission from Oceanside Star
Nelson Eddy, Special to the Star – Published: Thursday, December 02, 2010
The Coast Guard Auxiliary Unit 59 in Deep Bay has rescued two mariners in the last two weeks. Both times the lighthouse keepers on Chrome Island were instrumental in expediting the rescue.
The following article appeared in 2010 and I received permission to publish it here to show the work that lighthouse keepers do, but is not part of their job description.
This is why we need lighthouse keepers! Keep the lights manned!
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Saving lives part of the job on Chrome Island – with permission from Oceanside Star Pamela Suzanne, Smyth Special to the Star – Published: Thursday, August 12, 2010
If you ever hear your spouse say, “Oh look dear, there’s a couch in the sky,” think twice before calling mental health because every few years this happens, especially over Chrome Island.
The picturesque Chrome Island light station, off Deep Bay and Denman Island in Baynes Sound, has helped many a mariner over its rocks to warmth and safety - Photo by Pamela Suzanne Smyth
Since 1981, some 48 lighthouse keepers have been moved on and off the ‘yellow rock’ situated near the southern tip of Denman Island in Baynes Sound.
Recently, Adam Pardiac, 9, and sister Sarah, 13, were thrilled when their uncle Gary and granddad Cliff took them there this summer. Greeted by India, the beacon’s watchdog, and lighthouse keeper Roger Williamson, the children were shown the gardens, environmental devices and petroglyphs. Continue reading Saving Lives Part of the Job on Chrome Island – special reprint→
In the early twentieth century there were many navigational lights on the British Columbia coast maintained by individuals under contract. These were not lighthouses but pylons, piles, posts, rafts, or dolphins of wood or cement, or metal tanks made from disused military mooring buoys.
Upon these moorings was placed a kerosene (coal oil) lamp which would have to be tended. Some of the lights in accessible locations were lit before sunset and extinguished after sunrise, daily, weekly, for years, and with little pay.
Other lights were supplied with a two day lamp that remained lit for two days (the extent of the fuel reservoir) and then were changed over with a full, clean lamp. A later invention was a low maintenance, thirty-one day coal oil lamp. This also proved useless as it carboned up and was not very bright.
For example, before the real Capilano lighthouse (aka First Narrows) was established 1913 at the mouth of the Capilano river – List of Lights #394 – near the entrance to Vancouver Harbour, a black cylindrical tank was installed on a dolphin or piling, and a man was hired to row over and maintain the light and also wind the fog bell when it was installed at a later date. This was not an easy job because tides and fog competed with the Capilano river outflow to hamper any but the strongest of men.
First Narrows light 2006
When the Capilano lighthouse was automated in 1969, the lighthouse, complete with the engine room and residence on its wood pilings was burnt to the water and again a light beacon was established on a concrete pillar. This was later replaced with another beacon on a wood dolphin which stands today.
Another local light that was unwatched was Garry Point – List of Lights #333 – off the mouth of the Fraser River. Because of its location, this could be easily be reached by land and so did not require a manned station. It was probably maintained by a man from Steveston. Continue reading Unwatched Lights – All Automated→
