One of the benefits of having a “glamorous” job like a policeman, pilot, or lighthouse keeper is the collection of memorabilia such as models, photos, key-chain hangers, and lapel pins. This post is dedicated to lapel pins.
In the photos below you can see some of the pins that were collected by myself and my son over many years. From the Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) we have helicopters and ships (CCGS) and hovercraft as well as crests. We also worked in close co-ordination with Vessel Traffic Services (VTS) and Coast Guard Radio. Continue reading Lighthouse Collections – Lapel Pins→
The following story came to mind when a friend of mine from Victoria made a comment on this website.
The water on the Inside Passage called Queen Charlotte Strait is know for its enveloping fogs which cover all land and sea, sometimes for days at a a time.
Pulteney Point (top middle) and Kluxewe river (bottom middle)
In the early 1970s I was stationed at Pulteney Point Lighthouse – my first appointment to the lightstation service. What a delightful place it was, and the keepers, Walt and Joyce Tansky were the best to have for a person starting on the lights.
– Dorothy Mawdsley (Harris) Harrop (daughter of first light keeper, George Alfred Harris, at Capilano 1913 – 1925) (with special thanks to Alfred Harrop, grandson of George Alfred Harris, for letting me post the text of the letter.)
First Narrows c. 1920 - photo Dudley Booth
[Father (George Alfred Harris)]. . . was given the First Narrows Light and Fog Station. I cannot remember but have a notion it was end of april 1915 when he took over. The light was first used May 17,1915 the day after my 17th birthday. The fog horn was started June 1, 1915.
It must have been rather hard him living there by himself. I do not know the dimensions of the lighthouse but it was full of engines. Two engines were the same and were there in case one broke down, then an air compressor which was linked with belts to pulleys from the engine to the wall and then up to a higher pulley and across to the compressor, hence by pipes to the fog horns. Continue reading Life at First Narrows (aka Capilano) c. 1913→
This is a PDF copy of the Chance Diaphone Manual, which explains all the workings of the Diaphone Foghorn, and lists the many versions of the foghorn, their ranges, working pressures, sizes, etc. Click the link above to read or download the book.
– Elizabeth Kate (Stannard) Smithman (Wife of Henry Herbert Smithman who was Senior Keeper at Sisters Island 1927 – 1929)
Ballenas and Sisters Islands
I thought you might be interested to hear about “Life On a Lighthouse”.
We lived on them for about 5 ½ to 6 years and I guess we would have stayed and made a lifetime job of it but Bert [my husband] got very sick and had to be taken off to hospital where after a lingering illness he passed away.
Well some folks think it must be very lonesome life but there’s too much to do to get lonesome and besides, it’s a wonderful, interesting life.
We were on two different lights. The first one was the best as it was a bigger island and we could have a garden and there was lots of room for the children to play, however I took sick and as we thought lighthouse life did not suit me, Bert asked to be replaced by another light keeper.
We moved to Parksville, [Vancouver island, BC, Canada] where we had been getting our mail, etc.
A return to foghorns a boon to safety even in age of GPS
by Glen Farrough, Vancouver Sun, September 08, 2011
It’s been roughly eight years since the Coast Guard silenced most of the foghorns on our coastal lighthouses, for a saving of $75,000 per year. The main reason used to justify this move was the increasingly widespread use of global positioning system (GPS) devices.
Do any of my readers know where I would be able to obtain kerosene lamp mantles for lighthouse lamps? I received this email today, and would like to be able to help this lady out.
– Ted Smithman (Son of Henry Herbert Smithman who was Senior Keeper at Sisters Island 1927 – 1929)
I was allowed a lot of freedom there [Sisters Island ]. I would find a broad flat chunk of log and sit on it and explore the coast of the whole island. Mum worried but Dad seemed to trust us not to do anything really stupid. Continue reading Kids and Boats on Sisters Island c. 1928→
In the early days of lighthouses all lighthing was by kerosene lamps with wicks. When electricity first came to the lights, it was only for running the main light and occassionally for operation of the foghorn solenoids. Sometimes a knowledgeable principal keeper would wire in a light to his house – a single cable hanging from the ceiling with a small wattage bulb – usually in the kitchen.
Later came large generators and a bit more power. I say a ‘bit’ more. My first station at Pulteney Point had a 5 KW Kato generator run by a two-cylinder Lister diesel engine which supplied power to the main light, radio, and foghorn controls. The rest of the available current was left to be split between the three keeper’s houses. In 1969 our house was only one year old but had one electrical outlet per room and only two circuits per house. To have boiled eggs and toast for breakfast we had to wait until the principal keeper had finished cooking his breakfast – or cook before he got up – remember, we were on shifts. We would plug the hotplate in one outlet
Savoy oil stove
in the kitchen to boil the eggs (oil stove was so-o-o-o-o slow for boiling water) and the toaster in an outlet in the back bedroom (different circuit). That way both would be ready at same time! I remember the wives comparing times when they would be doing ironing. If you overloaded the circuits the engine would shut down and the main light would go out. This was a no-no!
Later the Coast Guard increased the size of the generators so that we had forty (40) amps (amperes) per house for electrical current but compared to a modern house in town running 100 amps minimum we still had to be careful. We generated 220 volts at 60 cycles but depending on the length of run of cable to the house, this could drop to 210 volts and 57 cycles. We could never run an electric clock on any lighthouse as the cycles were so erratic. You could lose 5 minutes or more in a day! By the time I left in 2001 the maximum we had was 60 amp breaker boxes in each house but if you didn’t watch it you could still overload the engines and shut them down.
Lister diesels C. 1990s
Unfortunately overloading was not the only problem. In the early days we had two 5KW (kilowatt) engines coupled to two-cylinder diesel engines. We would run one for a week, shut it down, do an oil and filter change and start it up again. If it had too many hours on it we waited for a replacement and ran the standby, praying for a ship to deliver the new engine. This worked very well. We checked them hourly for oil leaks and opened and closed windows for ventilation depending on room temeprature and weather.
Later, when the government got it into its head to try automating everything, they attached all kinds of sensors to our trusty diesels. Well the engines worked great but the sensors were always malfunctioning and shutting down the engines. We had oil temperature and pressure sensors, high and low voltage sensors, air temperature sensors and battery voltage sensors plus . . . I’ve forgotten all the reasons that a sensor could shut down an engine, but they did. We had an alarm in the house which sensed when the power went off (usually at night when we were sleeping) and rang a loud bell. Up we got from bed, dressed and headed up to the engine room. Hopefully the standby engine had started but usually it did not. If the sensor shut down the engine it usually shut down the control panel. Once we reset the panel, fired up the standby engine (just in case it was the poor main engine’s fault), checked out the problem engine, switched engines and wrote our log books and notified Coast Guard Radio that our light had been off it was usually time to start getting ready for our first weather of the morning at 3 AM (0300). Continue reading What You Take for Granted→
