This book first published in 1855 is a copy of the original produced by the Chance Brothers factory. From the handwritten prices and information, it appears to be a salesman’s copy which would have been given to the prospective buyer. As each light was specifically made for one location only, then this would have been a one-of-a-kind catalogue.
Download the complete book here in PDF format 22.5 MBs (60+ pages) – right click the link for more options)
If you wish to print the book, this scanned version size was 8.5″ x 11″ (21.5 x 28 cms.)
Back side of Triangle Island - Jack Bowerman photo from http://www.roughradio.ca
On the morning of October 30, 1918 in the vicinity of Triangle Island lighthouse, the HMCS Galiano foundered and sank.
Not much is known about the sinking, but the story is associated with the Triangle Island lighthouse because that was their last port of call. Triangle Island is remembered as the most remote, isolated, lonely and wind-swept piece of rock in which the government placed a lighthouse.
A friend of mine, John MacFarlane, created a website about all things nautical. In an email notification I learned about an excellent historical record of the HMCS Galiano written by Stephen Rybak.
Here is a taste from the article:
Miss Emily Brunton had been hired by the six bachelors staffing the radio station as a housekeeper. The 35 year–old Miss Brunton arrived on Triangle Island in 1916 and had introduced a little civility and good cooking to the station. It was to be her first trip off the wind-swept and treeless rock in 18 months.
Rybak, Stephen (2012) The Wreck of HMCS Galiano 1918. Nauticapedia.ca2012.
Continue reading by clicking on the Nauticapedia link in blue just above.
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Triangle Island lighthouse was discontinued only a few years later, but an interesting sidelight to the story is that the main light is now on display at the Sooke Regional Museum just outside Victoria, BC. See the photo below:
You all know my feelings about the Enbridge Pipeline project (aka Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines) currently being proposed for British Columbia. I am definitely against it. During my years on the BC lighthouses I saw many examples of poorly managed mines and fisheries. Let us stop this one before it gets started and one oil spill creates havoc on our beautiful BC coast. Please read this student’s opinion. – retlkpr
We all like oil, because we like the benefits that come from oil: like our heat and our gasoline. But we’re all hypocrites, because we don’t like to see the oil, pay for it, or sacrifice our lifestyles for it. —more
Established: October 01, 1888 Automated: January 1926
Three nautical miles east of Point Atkinson, situated at the base of a cliff, stands the lonely and short-lived lighthouse called Prospect Point.
The light was first manned in October 1888 and was overshadowed by the importance of the Signal Station on the cliff above. This signal station operated in conjunction with Brockton Point to signal when ships were coming into or out of Vancouver Harbour.
In January 1926 the poor lightkeeper was informed by the Department of Marine and Fisheries that the lighthouse would be electrified and would then be operated by the Prospect Point Signal Station. He was out of a job after years keeping both systems working.
Prospect Point Lighthouse keeper’s house 1920 – 1930 Photo by Cyril R. Littlebury from Dudley Booth Collection
Prospect Point Lighthouse (bottom) Signal Station (top) Photo by Cyril R. Littlebury from Dudley Booth Collection
Princess Victoria passing Prospect inbound 1920 – 1930 Photo by Cyril R. Littlebury from Dudley Booth Collection
Princess Patricia Passing Prospect 1920 – 1930 Photo by Cyril R. Littlebury from Dudley Booth Collection
SS Prince Rupert Passing Prospect 1920 – 1930 Photo by Cyril R. Littlebury from Dudley Booth Collection
Prospect Point Signal Station 1920 – 1930 Photo by Cyril R. Littlebury from Dudley Booth Collection
The photo below shows what replaced the lighthouse – a concrete block structure with a light on top and several small electric foghorns.
Prospect Point 2006 Modern light, modern ship Photo from pwhsu48 Webshots page.
As mentioned above, the Prospect Point and Brockton Point signal stations monitored ship traffic in and out of Vancouver harbour.
Just across the harbour from Prospect Point, at the mouth of the Capilano river, was the tiny little-known Capilano lighthouse (aka First Narrows). (see Capilano webpage here.)
Below is a photo taken from the mouth of the Capilano River showing Prospect Point today and the the probable view from the Capilano lighthouse. Beside it is a Google Earth map showing the exact location of the three lighthouses.
Prospect Point 2006 From mouth of Capilano river Notice – no signal station Photo from Glamorous_Life Flickr page.
Google Earth map Showing Vancouver harbour lights Photo from Google Earth printout.
In this 360° view you can see Prospect Point off the right-hand side of the bridge. As the scene sweeps across the harbour, The sandbanks of the Capilano River come into view with the dolphin visible in deeper water. (Zoom in using Shift, and out with Ctrl key; Pause by clicking on photo).
I was writing an article that contained a reference to the CCGS Camsell, a Coast Guard icebreaker, and I got to wondering how many people knew about the history of the Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) ice breakers. Thanks to the generosity of the CCG website I have been given permission to reproduce their material here. It is a very interesting story.
The following article is reproduced with the permission of the Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada, 2012
We have already noted the influence of the Prince Edward Island winter service on the building of passenger vessels able to navigate in ice, ranging from the underpowered and ineffective Northern Light of 1876 to the handsome cruising ship Earl Grey of 1909. The main business of these ships was to maintain communications. While this evolution was unfolding, the problem of flood control on the St. Lawrence demanded attention. From earliest times ice floating down had formed an annual dam between Montreal and Quebec, causing flooding as it built up and further damage to ships when it gave way. In an attempt to control this process by keeping the ice on the move, a requirement now arose for ships whose primary role was to break ice rather than to maintain communications. As a secondary role, which Canadian icebreakers must have to provide an economic year round usage, there was plenty of work to be done in support of aids to navigation.
The landing under the hook (aka highline) at Kains Island was a large basin at the back side. It looked like a very large boulder had been washed out from the hole. It was a bit tricky if the swell was running to bring the station inflatable in safely but we never had a accident in my three years on station.
Ocean Sea foam - photo unknown photographer
After a SE winter storm the hole would fill up with kelp stems broken off the surrounding reefs by the large swells. The swells then pounded this kelp into a tan-coloured foam which drifted all over the ocean and blew up into the trees and hung there like lichen. It was quite light but sticky to the touch.
One winter day we were expecting the supply ship with groceries, mail, etc. One of the Coast Guard buoy tenders arrived rocking and rolling in the swells in Quatsino Sound. Over the side went the workboat and then began the process of off-loading the supplies into her. We could see the orange-suited crew members on deck and in the boat but could not recognize anyone.
Lowering station boat into the hole - note the foam - photo retlkpr
As we watched the workboat pull away from the shelter of the ship we were called on the radio by an unknown voice that the boat was on its way in. We acknowledged and commented that this appeared to be a new mate. Always fun to see how much experience they had unloading under a highline.
The boat rolled across the half kilometer distance between us and the ship, sometimes disappearing completely in the swells. The mate brought the boat closer to shore and lined up with the small bay, all the while ploughing a path through the foam which was pushed aside by the bow. As the boat neared the gap the mate rode a swell in under the hook and all but completely disappeared!
We could see well from the winch shed and the highline deck but only heads were showing in the workboat – the rest had completely disappeared! During the night the storms had lashed the kelp to pulp and filled the gap with sea foam to almost a metre deep! The workboat rode in on the swell and right under the foam.
The gap from seaward at low tide - photo retlkpr
Pushing the foam aside, the crew grabbed the lowered hook, slipped on a set of slings and signalled Haul Away. As the bonnet sling left the well of the workboat it also left a nice clean spot in the boat. On landing on the highline deck above, it was discovered that everything was covered with the sea foam, but, all was OK on the inside of the cartons of groceries and bags of mail although a bit sticky on the outside. The foam, although appearing quite dense, was actually quite dry and no harm was done.
The mate was a little more cautious when he came in with the second load.
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More information about the sea foam. Below is the content of an email I received in March 17, 2008.
HERE’S SOMETHING WE’LL NEVER SEE………WHIPPED OCEAN……..AMAZING!
Suddenly the shoreline north of Sydney was transformed into the Cappuccino Coast . Foam swallowed an entire beach and half the nearby buildings, including the local lifeguards’ centre, in a freak display of nature at Yamba in New South Wales .
One minute a group of teenage surfers were waiting to catch a wave, the next they were swallowed up in a giant bubble bath. The foam was so light that they could puff it out of their hands and watch it float away.
Boy in the bubble bath: Tom Woods, 12, emerges from the clouds of foam after deciding that surfing was not an option
It stretched for 30 miles out into the Pacific in a phenomenon not seen at the beach for more than three decades. Scientists explain that the foam is created by impurities in the ocean, such as salts, chemicals, dead plants, decomposed fish and excretions from seaweed. All are churned up together by powerful currents which cause the water to form bubbles. These bubbles stick to each other as they are carried below the surface by the current towards the shore. As a wave starts to form on the surface, the motion of the water causes the bubbles to swirl upwards and, massed together, they become foam.
The foam ‘surfs’ towards shore until the wave ‘crashes’, tossing the foam into the air.
Whitewash: The foam was so thick it came all the way up to the surf club
‘It’s the same effect you get when you whip up a milk shake in a blender,’ explains a marine expert. ‘The more powerful the swirl, the more foam you create on the surface and the lighter it becomes.’ In this case, storms off the New South Wales Coast and further north off Queensland had created a huge disturbance in the ocean, hitting a stretch of water where there was a particularly high amount of the substances which form into bubbles. As for 12-year-old beach goer Tom Woods, who has been surfing since he was two, riding a wave was out of the question ‘Me and my mates just spent the afternoon leaping about in that stuff,’ he said.
‘It was quite cool to touch and it was really weird. It was like clouds of air – you could hardly feel it.’
Children play among all the foam which was been whipped up by cyclonic conditions.
– Elizabeth Kate (Stannard) Smithman (Wife of Henry Herbert Smithman who was Senior Keeper at Sisters Island 1927 – 1929)
Light keepers have to take a four-month supply of food when they go on as there’s no way of getting anything otherwise. No stores to run to and no neighbours to borrow from, ha ha. The government boat called the lighthouse tender [probably the CCGS Estevan which was built in 1912] calls around every 4 or 5 months. Light keepers order groceries from wholesalers in Victoria and it is delivered to the government wharf and loaded on the tender and they bring it when they are coming up that way.
In an earlier story I wrote about how the lighthouse keepers have been doing sea water samples since the early 1930s – some of the oldest observations on the BC coast!
Now, with satellites we can get different temperatures of the sea – Sea Surface Temperatures for one – similar to what the lightkeepers do, but globally.
Sea surface temperatures have a large influence on climate and weather. For example, every 3 to 7 years a wide swath of the Pacific Ocean along the equator warms by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius. This warming is a hallmark of the climate pattern El Niño, which changes rainfall patterns around the globe, causing heavy rainfall in the southern United States and severe drought in Australia, Indonesia, and southern Asia. On a smaller scale, ocean temperatures influence the development of tropical cyclones (hurricanes and typhoons), which draw energy from warm ocean waters to form and intensify. – NASA Earth Observatory Continue reading The Awfully Long Thermometer!→
Following along with yesterday’s story about travel on a CCGS ice breaker, and with the permission of the author, Pamela Coulston, I am reprinting her article here about life on Canadian Coast Guard ice breakers servicing the north and the lighthouses. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Surprisingly, everyone made it to dinner, they also made it to breakfast and lunch. The
Photo courtesy of Gerald Rohatensky
Coast Guard icebreaker Sir Wilfrid Laurier was taking a whipping from the weather in the middle of the Bering Sea. But not a meal was missed.
While the two cooks dished up three squares, the seas served up a storm that included winds gusting to 90 knots and 10-metre waves that broke over the bow, drenching the bridge four storeys above.
The captain ordered all loose items secured and all outer decks off-limits – any one of these larger waves could wash a person overboard to their death in near freezing waters. Continue reading Of Ice and Men→
One of the duties of a lighthouse keeper on some stations, was to do a daily Sea Water sample. It was started very early on (see the story here), before the advent of Global warming, and the observed data has been beneficial in many ways as you will see at the bottom..
Kains Island (Quatsino) lighthouse
In the above-mentioned story from Kains Island lighthouse, the samples started in 1935, so we have seventy-seven (77) years of ocean data. Also in the story is the fact that in the early years . . .
. . . the small glass bottles of sea water with cork stoppers were stored in wooden boxes with many little squares, one for each bottle1. These boxes would be shipped out when the supply ship re-supplied the station once a year, usually in July.Continue reading Ocean Water Samples→
