Category Archives: Recreation

West Coast Recipes – Part One

 

I thought this might be interesting for people in other parts of the world who read this website. There are many food recipes associated with the West Coast of Canada and USA – many from the First Nations people, and many from the residents be they mariners, lighthouse keepers, villagers, prospectors, hunters or others. I will try and see what I can find. I will try and post about five (5) recipes per post. If others have any contributions, please pass them on. Full credit will be given.

 

One recipe I have posted can be found here: Thomas Crosby Muffins. Also a book was written about British Columbia lighthouses called The Lighthouse Cookbook by Anita Stewart. It is an excellent book and is available from Amazon.com.

 

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1. Salmon Fish Cakes

Now this is one of the simplest recipes to make, and I learned about making them from my wife Karen who’s father used to cook them while out on the West Coast fishing for salmon. His recipe was pretty simple: Use whatever is available! Take some leftover cooked salmon, mix it about half and half with some leftover cooked potatoes, throw in an egg to help hold it together and season with salt and pepper. If available, add a few chopped green onions. Make into patties and fry in one-quarter inch (1/4″) oil, flipping once until brown on both sides. Serve with whatever condiment is available – lemons and/or ketchup.  Enjoy!

Below is a more cookbook style of making the same thing:

Salmon Fish Cakes

1 1/4 lbs potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks

1 lb salmon fillets, skin on, scaled and bones removed (or in a pinch try using 2 cans of Clover Leaf’s canned boneless/skinless salmon) Continue reading West Coast Recipes – Part One

Lightkeeper Retirement Homes

No, this does not refer to retirement homes such as you are imagining for senior citizens. This is a fictitious tale of what I imagine a lightkeeper might look for in a home when he retires. None of these homes are actually inhabited by a lighthouse keeper, as far as I know, but they appealed to me as a place where a keeper might like to retire.

Most keepers hate to leave their lighthouse homes at all, but sometimes, as in my case, retirement beckons too strongly and we give up the solitary life. Maybe we would move into . . . 

1. How about this one?

I saw this little dwelling and its location and immediately fell in love with it. It is isolated; it is near water; it even has a boat (note the kayak beneath the house). I still ride a bicycle, so why not paddling a kayak into old age? Perfect location for me.

The photograph is by Irene Becker for National Geographic Picture of the Day: A Tiny River House in Serbia. The website says:

A house in the middle of the Drina River near the town of Bajina Basta, Serbia. The Drina is a 346 km long river that forms much of the border between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. It is the longest tributary of the Sava River and the longest karst river in the Dinaric Alps.

i searched via Google Earth and finally found the location at latitude 43°59’3.73″N, Longitude 19°33’59.67″E (Google Earth KML file with several more photos of the house). Continue reading Lightkeeper Retirement Homes

Tides

photo Paul Kurbis

One of the reasons for the establishment of a lighthouse is to mark the dangers from the effect of extreme tides (low and high) on surrounding lands, islands, waterways, and beaches. 

Look at the photo on the left of my old lighthouse at McInnes Island at low tide (click for a larger version). We can tell it is low tide because the kelp is exposed on the rocks, and the high tide mark on the rocks is marked by a dirty black line. Here on the Pacific Coast of Canada, the tides come in and go out twice a day, and the range is between seventeen (17) and twenty-one (21) feet (6 to 7 meters)!

Note the small rock at dead center, bottom of the photo. At high tide that would be covered and become a menace to navigation. In this case this is not a marked shipping channel so no marker is necessary. The reason for the lighthouse (visible on the left of the large island) is that it was listed as a landfall light. A marker for ships coming in from the Pacific Ocean to the British Columbia coastline, and also a marker for the entrance to Milbanke Sound. It really doesn’t mark the island as dangerous; just an indicator of a mariner’s location on the ocean.

Example of a floating dock

To return to a docked boat on the BC coast after a few hours of sightseeing or shopping is sometimes a surprise for many tourists. The docks for the boats are built to float up and down on fixed pilings to accommodate the 21 foot tides (see photo left). To get onto the dock you walk up or down a ramp. A roller on the lower end rolls along the dock as the tide rises or falls. The top part of the ramp is hinged.

The tides change approximately every six hours, so if you left your boat and walked up the steep ramp to the topside dock at 10 AM (low tide) and came back at 2 PM (4 hours difference), the ramp would be almost horizontal (high tide). If you had lots of heavy groceries to move it was always a good idea to plan at what time of day you wanted to move them! Continue reading Tides

Animals at Lighthouses

 

Lightkeeper's Menagerie
Lightkeeper’s Menagerie

In November 2011 I made a post about a book by Elinor De Wire called The Lightkeeper’s Menagerie. This was a book about stories of animals at lighthouses. Later, in 2012 I received a nice email from Elinor and an offer to send me a copy of the book. The book arrived a while ago and I have yet to delve into it’s 328 pages (I will soon Elinor!), but I came across a couple of photos that brought to mind my stories of animals on lighthouses.

I did write about Cougars on the Doorstep but this post is referring to mostly my pets who lived on the lighthouses where I served.

cats on a canoe
cats on a canoe

The picture on the left shows two cats on the bow of a canoe and I immediately thought of our first Siamese cat called

Tipsy at Pulteney
Tipsy at Pulteney

Tipsy, because she used to drink beer!. Tipsy travelled to our first lighthouse at Pulteney Point, but before we moved to the lighthouse we used to take our canoe out on the ocean.

Tipsy always wanted to come – in the car, in the canoe, on walks, into bed – we could never leave her behind. So, off into the ocean she went with us. Upon our return to shore she would jump from the bow, about 10 feet from the shore, and swim to the beach! She was not afraid of water as most cats are. Tipsy loved the lighthouse. Lots more to do than being stuck in an apartment!

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Tricia grins
Tricia grins

At Pulteney Point we decided we needed a dog as well. Well, one of my favourites was the Dalmation so our next trip out we purchased a Dalmation pup. Tricia was a Continue reading Animals at Lighthouses

A Lighthouse at Night

 

One of the nicest things about night shift on McInnes Island lighthouse was observing the sky on a clear night. It was always the same, and always different.

The same stars were always there, but the moon waxed and waned, comets streaked across at intervals, sometimes an airplane’s navigation lights blinked in the south, or sometimes the Northern Lights flashed in the north. Below are some more shots.

[nggallery id=66]

One of the problems with seeing such sights in the city is the city lights, often called light pollution. The graphic below ill show you what is seen and not seen as light pollution decreases.

I must confess, that is what the night sky looks like at night from a lighthouse, but not having a photo from my experiences on McInnes lighthouse as my camera was too amateurish for such detail, I added the lighthouse silhouette to the photos from the gallery below. Are the photos below fantastic or not?

[nggallery id=67]

 

But, when looking at the full-sized photo at the top, turn off your lights and imagine what it was like. Sometimes we would take a foam mat and lay down on the helicopter pad and just watch the night sky. It was fascinating. For meteor showers and comets it was unbeatable. Continue reading A Lighthouse at Night

The Widow’s Walk and a House Rental called ‘Lighthouse Watch’

What is a Widow’s Walk? It is definitely not a new dance!

I will give you a hint – It is a fixture built onto a house. It was prevalent in the days of sailing ships, both in Italy where it originated as a style of architecture, and also in eastern American houses on the waterfront.

Here’s a legendary quote on the use of the Widow’s Walk:

The widow's walk is the fenced in balcony on the top right

The faithful and dedicated wife, performing her daily circumambulations on the cold and lonely widow’s walk: The next sail to top the horizon may well carry her husband, gone to sea these many years. But not today. The sun sets, bringing to a close her lonely vigil for this day. Perhaps, though, the much-anticipated vision will appear tomorrow and if not tomorrow, the next day. – Fishermen’s Voice

That article gives more credit to the use of the widow’s walk for fire prevention rather than for lonely widows pining for their husbands. Below in the gallery are some photos of what a Widow’s Walk looks like.

[nggallery id=59]

 Give up? OK, check out this Wikipedia article1 for a good description.

It is not necessarily a lighthouse thing, but maybe, just maybe, a lonely lighthouse widow did walk around the lantern searching for the return of her man from town with the mail and groceries in his rowboat, or late from a fishing or hunting trip. On this website there are many stories of death on the water with a lighthouse background.

By the way, The walkway around the outside of a lighthouse lantern room (for cleaning the lantern glass) is called a Gallery, and the walkway around the light inside (for lens cleaning) is called the Lantern Gallery.

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Lighthouse Watch – House Rental, North Carolina, USA. c/w widow’s walk!

 Caswell Beach house rental, North Carolina, USA. Interested? Contact 

Oak Island Accommodations, Inc. Telephone:+ 1-800-518-4118 ext. 7153373

 
  • Caswell Beach house rental
    Caswell Beach house rental
    Caswell Beach house rental
    Caswell Beach house rental
    Caswell Beach house rental
    Caswell Beach house rental
  • Caswell Beach house rental
    Caswell Beach house rental
    Caswell Beach house rental
    Caswell Beach house rental
     
 
Per week (USD)$1,396 – $2,496

 
  • Bedrooms 4
     
  • Sleeps 8
     
  • 3 Bathrooms

FOOTNOTES:

1 Widow’s Walk – A widow’s walk also known as a “widow’s watch” (or roofwalk) is a railed rooftop platform often with a small enclosed cupola frequently found on 19th century North American houses. A popular romantic myth holds that the platform was used to observe vessels at sea. The name is said to come from the wives of mariners, who would watch for their spouses’ return, often in vain as the ocean took the lives of the mariners, leaving the women widows.[1] In other coastal communities, the platforms were called Captain’s Walk, as they topped the homes of the more successful captains and supposedly ship owners and captains would use them to search the horizon for ships due in port.

However, there is little or no evidence that widow’s walks were intended or regularly used to observe shipping. Widow’s walks are in fact a standard decorative feature of Italianate architecture, which was very popular during the height of the Age of Sail in many North American coastal communities. The widow’s walk is a variation of the Italianate cupola.[2] The Italianate cupola, also known as a “belvedere”, was an important ornate finish to this style, although it was often high maintenance and prone to leaks.[3]

Beyond their use as viewing platforms, they are frequently built around the chimney of the residence, thus creating access to the structure. This allows the residents of the home to pour sand down burning chimneys in the event of a chimney fire in the hope of preventing the house from burning down

[private]http://www.homeaway.com/vacation-rental/p7153373h#map

http://southerncottages.blogspot.com/2010/04/legend-of-widows-walks.html

http://www.fishermensvoice.com/archives/0310widowsWalk.html[/private]

 

For Sale – James Island, Sidney, British Columbia, Canada

 

January 19, 2013 – As of today’s date the property has not sold!

OK, it’s NOT a lighthouse, but it is a light, and it is on your own private island. Well, it could be yours if you have $75, 000, 000 to spare! We can always dream!

If you wanted you could build your own lighthouse in the middle, but why worry, it comes with a white (W) flashing (Fl) navigational light (see LL #227 above)1 off the NW point of the island. All yours with the purchase of the island.

Take a look at the photo below!

 That is James Island off Sidney, British Columbia, Canada, and it is being listed by Sotheby’s International Realty Canada for the above-mentioned price.  To quote the website:

Situated only a few miles off of Sidney, James Island is in close proximity to Victoria, British Columbia’s capital city, and is easily accessed by private plane or boat. A retreat like no other, James Island compares to only a handful of international properties. Improved with a magnificent 18-hole Jack Nicklaus Signature golf course, the island has been thoughtfully developed to seamlessly blend in with not only its surrounding environment, but also its history. A wide range of improvements complement the island including a masterpiece

owner’s residence of 5,000 square feet, 6 beautifully appointed guest cottages, private docks and airstrip, pool house, managers residence, a ‘western village’, and much more.

The place used to be a munitions factory for years, up until 1994, when it was sold for $19,000,000. In the end Canadian Industries Limited (CIL) used to make gunpowders and dynamite. I remember as a child seeing the signs on Vancouver Island that trespassing was forbidden. 

Sotheby's Website

 

More photos on Sotheby’s website

More on the story from the Times Colonist newspaper

 

 

FOOTNOTES: 

1DESCRIPTION OF COLUMNS (in List of Lights Notations)

Column 1 -Indicates light list number of each aid

Column 2 -Name of aid

Column 3 -Location

Column 4 -Characteristic of light

Column 5 -Focal height in metres above water

Column 6 -Nominal range

Column 7 -Description, height in metres

Column 8 -General remarks, fog signals and CHS No. of the largest scale paper chart of the area

 

 

Lighthouse For Sale – Rhode Island, USA

 

April 05, 2014 – As of today this property has not been sold. See the table below of Pricing History from Zillow. It seems it is overpriced, by a lot!

1 Poplar Avenue, North Kingstown, RI  02852

4 Bedroom
4.1 Bath(s)   
   4 Full Bath(s)
   1 Half Bath(s)
$6,450,000
MLS#: 1002327 

America’s oldest wooden lighthouse! Built in 1831 and set on breathtaking Wickford Harbor,this iconic RI landmark is now one of it’s most admired waterfront estates. Casually elegant 4 bedroom main house,3 bedroom guest house,pool,new dock. Magical. – Residential Properties Ltd. Continue reading Lighthouse For Sale – Rhode Island, USA

Reprint – The Great Pacific Garbage Reality

May 27, 2012 – copied from the LA Times

The great Pacific garbage reality. It’s not tsunami debris we should fear; it’s the trash clogging our oceans – Usha Lee McFarling

I received permission today to reprint this article written by Usha Lee McFarling supporting the theory expressed in my story  Japanese Debris On The BC Coast – Is it from the Tsunami?

In thirty-two (32) years living on and beachcombing the British Columbia (BC) coast in many different areas, I still believe that the press is making a big, and false, hoopla over this.

Sure, every year debris comes on the western North American (NA) coasts in the wintertime – a lot of it from Asia (not only Japan!). This year seems to be an exceptionally good year for garbage with tides and currents working well together to bring it to the NA shores, and the debris is also supplemented by the Japanese tsunami of March 2011. Don’t panic! It has been happening every year, with or without the tsunami!

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The Story from Ms. McFarling:

Harley-Davidson ( Peter Mark / Kyodo News, Associated Press / May 2, 2012 ) A rusting Harley-Davidson from Miyagi prefecture, Japan, was discovered on a remote beach in British Columbia in late April and photographed May 2.

For months, West Coast residents have been bracing for an onslaught of items drifting toward us since last spring’s tsunami in northeastern Japan, which swept apartment buildings, cars, even entire villages, into the sea.

Now we are seeing the first trickle of that debris. A ghost ship arrived in the Gulf of Alaska this spring. A rusting Harley Davidson from Miyagi prefecture was discovered on a remote beach in British Columbia. A soccer ball found on an Alaskan island and marked with a personal message was returned to its delighted teenage owner in the tsunami-devastated town of Rikuzentakata.

Like dreams — or nightmares — these wayward bits of other people’s lives bring us closer to the distant disaster. They make the world smaller. A number of groups have started projects to reunite recovered possessions with their former owners. And one beachside town in Oregon is hoping tsunami “treasure hunting” will result in increased tourism.

But now that the first unlikely items have reached us, we’re also beginning to worry: Will the debris be radioactive? Will human remains turn up? Will mountains of scrap cover our beaches? One blogger callously suggested the Japanese government should pay for the cleanup.

Such reactions reveal a torrent of misconception. Continue reading Reprint – The Great Pacific Garbage Reality

What is Harper Afraid of? – by Franke James

The full content of this pictograph is available here on Franke James website. Please read it, send a letter, even if you live outside Canada, to let the Canadian Prime Minister know that what he is doing is WRONG!

More –>