Category Archives: Recreation

Not Beachcombing

Adult Memories, Beachcombing, Equipment, Hobbies, Keepers, Lighthouses, Recreation, Visitors, , , , , , , , , , , ,

No, the title does not mean I have gone a wee bit balmy. This article is about finding things but not on the beach. It is also not really about lighthouses, but does take place on, or near a lighthouse where my wife Karen and I were first stationed.

When I saw the photo below it brought back many memories of our first lighthouse at Pulteney Point, Malcolm Island.

 Pulteney Point lighthouse is located between Port McNeil and Port Hardy on Vancouver Island, British Columbia (see map below). It is still manned.

In 1901 Finnish settlers made Malcolm Island their home – see a short version of the story here.

Pulteney Point

When we arrived at the lighthouse in 1969 there were still traces of the settlements visible in the woods between the lighthouse and the town of Sointula. Old buildings, parts of wharves, chimneys, rusting appliances and farm implements. One needed a boat to explore most of them as there were no usable trails through the woods – at least none that were usable now.

But out behind the lighthouse there was a trail leading into the woods along the beach on the northwest side leading to a small creek that flowed into the ocean where the lightkeepers used to pump water to the station for drinking water. Part way along the trail were a couple of old buildings we were told housed the early settlers.

Having explored many ruins and old townsites on Vancouver Island before moving onto the lights we thought we were pretty expert at finding old souvenirs, bottles, etc.

Armed with shovel, trowel and a few sacks we headed out one day to explore the ruins. We knew we were probably not the first ones to explore the site, but hoped that our expertise would prevail and we would find what they had not.

First, we had been told many years earlier, look for a garbage dump. By now that would have been overgrown, so we looked for any hump that was off to the side of the property and away from the main house.

our find, like the bottle on the left

We did find and excavate a couple of likely spots, but found nothing that resembled what we were looking for. We searched through both buildings – one a house, and the other outbuilding, probably a sauna – hey, it was a Finnish homestead, so why not?

After hours of searching we found one small Vaseline bottle which had turned purple in the sun. Heading home proudly with our find, we showed it off to the other family at the lighthouse.


View Larger Map (Pulteney Point lighthouse at the marker)

We completely forgot about the episode until about a year later when a boat with strangers arrived at the station. The two men and two women explained that they had been exploring the old Finnish homesteads for souvenirs and asked if it would be okay to look around out back as they had been told there was a homestead there as well.

Walter Tansky, the senior keeper, said there was no problem as all the property behind the lighthouse was Crown Land. I was wondering how long they would be there before they discovered that there was nothing significant there.

After a couple of hours they had not returned. I got curious and wandered back there to see what was taking so much of their time. Upon arriving at the site I saw that the floorboards had been torn up, and there was a pile of old bottles sitting off to one side.

How? Where? What . . .? I was speechless. Where did all these bottles come from?

So after getting over my shock, I asked some questions. It turns out they had found what they thought was the kitchen by probing. Probing involves the use of a spring steel probe about 1/4″ in diameter and about 4 feet long. It usually has a metal or wood T-handle. This is pushed into the earth to locate buried objects like metal and glass.

Under the floor in the kitchen they found most of the bottles. They assumed that a wood shelf had collapsed onto the rotten floor and carried its load of bottle with it. Some were broken, but most were in very good condition because they had not been moved since the early 1900s.

So this was not beachcombing, and I could not call it landcombing, but we sure did learn a lot about bottle scavenging.

Killer Whale Attack at McInnes Island Lighthouse!

Adult Memories, Boats, Communication, Equipment, Fishing, Lighthouses, Old Website, Radio, Recreation, Wildlife, , , , , , , , , , , , ,
2 HP Evinrude electric trolling motor

One early morning I was out on the water trolling for salmon from my 12 foot (4 metre) aluminum boat. The sun was just rising and I had just completed and transmitted my first weather of the morning. By the time I had a coffee ready, loaded rods and lures into the boat and lowered the boat into the water via the highline it was probably about 04:30.

At the time I did not have the money for a gas outboard so was using 12 volt Evinrude 2HP electric motor for trolling. Becauseof winds and tide this was only good on a a flat calm day which this was. As the sun rose it became warmer and I could see better. Behind me in Catala Passage the water began to boil and the herring gulls started to appear from nowhere. It was a herring ball!1 (a.k.a. bait ball as there are many types of small fish that ball up when attacked) Continue reading Killer Whale Attack at McInnes Island Lighthouse! →

Death on Price Island

Adult Memories, Beachcombing, Boats, Lighthouses, Maps, Old Website, Recreation, Wildlife, , , , , , , , ,

 


McInnes marked – view Larger map

On one of our beachcombing trips Roger Mogg and I headed up this narrow deep inlet on the East side of Price Island, just a few kilometres from McInnes Island Lighthouse. (see interactive map above – red marker is McInnes Island; Price Island is NE a bit and labelled as such) Continue reading Death on Price Island →

Lighthouse Quotations

Hobbies, Lighthouses, On The Job, Poetry, Recreation, , , ,

I wasn’t going to do this page because there are not too many lighthouse quotations out there. The only two good ones I found were: 

Lighthouses are more helpful than churches. – Benjamin Franklin

 

I can think of no other edifice constructed by man as altruistic as a lighthouse. They were built only to serve. – George Bernard Shaw

Does anybody know of anymore? Send them on and I can add them here, and give you a credit for finding them.

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A Posting to Isolation – Pachena Pt. 1949 – 1955

Adult Memories, Children, Communication, Equipment, Groceries & Mail, Keepers, Lighthouses, Medical Emergency, Old Website, On The Job, Operators, Radio, Recreation, School, Weather, , , , ,

– Betty Healey (Wife of Arthur Healey – Officer-in-Charge (OIC) Pachena Point Radio station (VAD) 1949 – 1955)
– forward by editor Tom Racine (from his website History of Spectrum Management in Canada) 

D.O.T.’er Arthur Healey was officer-in-charge at Pachena Point  Marine Radio Station from 1949 to 1955. With his wife Betty and three children, Ann, John and Michael who were then 12, 8 and 7 years of age respec­tively, he spent six years at this isolated post. He went from there to Alert Bay and last summer took over as officer-in-charge at Victoria Marine Radio. 

Access to Pachena Radio, which was closed down in 1958 after 45 years of operation, was by lighthouse tender, or Bamfield lifeboat, and then by workboat through the surf to the bonnet-sling; then highline up the cliff. If one was a good hiker, it was possible to trek the nine miles from Bamfield to Pachena, and that was how the Healey’s first got there. 

Today, living once again in a large urban community, Mrs. Healey recalls the rewarding experiences shared by the family during that six year period. The children are now young adults: Ann is married and the mother of four children; John received a Bachelor of Education degree last year and is now teaching at Burns Lake, B.C., and Michael, working towards a Master’s degree in zoology at UBC, plans to go to Europe for Ph.D. studies.  Continue reading A Posting to Isolation – Pachena Pt. 1949 – 1955 →

Japanese Debris On The BC Coast – Is it from the Japanese Tsunami?

Beachcombing, Communication, Earthquake, Foreign, Glass Balls, Lighthouses, Recreation, Ships & Shipping, Tsunami, , , , , , , , , , ,

 

The next time you go to the beach and pick up a piece up something from the sand, think of the story of how it arrived there. Is it something lost from the local town, or something that has drifted for years to arrive here just for you?

Kuroshio Current (upper left)

 Early in the 1900’s – commercial Japanese crab fishermen began replacing wooden and cork floats on their fishing nets with free blown glass floats. When the nets broke loose or were lost, the net rotted and the glass balls floated free from their nets and drifted across the Pacific, along with much other debris, on the Kuroshio Current (also known as the Black Stream or Japanese Current). This is a north-flowing ocean current on the west side of the North Pacific Ocean and it is part of the North Pacific ocean gyre1.

1910 – PRESENT – Every year the Kuroshio Current brings material from Asia to North American shores – floats, shoes, boats, wood, bottles, cans, etc. – garbage! Continue reading Japanese Debris On The BC Coast – Is it from the Japanese Tsunami? →

A Quick Present for Christmas

3D Drawings, Advertisement, Childhood Memories, Children, Christmas, Construction, Hobbies, Jigsaw Puzzles, Lighthouses, Recreation, Videos, , , , , , ,

I came across this item in a sale flyer that came out today. It is a jigsaw puzzle lighthouse in 3D. It is available in many places in Europe, and possibly in America (Canada and USA), although I did not find it in Amazon.ca or Amazon.com. The finished tower is 8.3 cms (3.25″) wide  by 35.0 cms (13.5″) high.

 The advertising video on the webpage shows it a bit exaggerated I think. To find the videos look to the right of the two small photos on the webpage, and you will find the videos in two blue boxes labelled TV-Spot and Erklärfilm. One of the videos is here – click your mouse on the blue link.

Continue reading A Quick Present for Christmas →

Porlier Pass Lighthouse 1949 – 1965

Adult Memories, Automation, Childhood Memories, Children, Coast Guard, Communication, Construction, Equipment, Government, History, Incidents, Keepers, Lighthouses, Medical, Medical Emergency, Old Website, Pensions, Radio, Recreation, School, Stories, Women, , ,

– 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 →

I Saw a Sunfish

Adult Memories, British Columbia, Fishing, Keepers, Lighthouses, On The Job, Recreation, Weather, , , , , ,
One of 19 photos from the NDR website - three short videos are also there

Last night I saw a documentary on the German TV channel NDR about searching for Sunfish (Mola mola) – Mondfische in the German language which means Moonfish – off the California Coast and off the Italian island of Elba in the Mediterranean Sea.

Now, this is a website about lighthouses – why would I be writing about Sunfish?

 

Small sunfish in the water - photo Paul Howells

Well one year warm California currents moved north – as far north as Prince Rupert, BC. I am not too sure of the exact year but judging from the years with warmest sea surface temperatures 1 I would guess it to be about 1984 as I remember an assistant 2 named Roger Mogg on station at the time. Continue reading I Saw a Sunfish →

Don’t You Get Bored?

Adult Memories, Boats, Children, Fishing, Lighthouses, Medical, Medical Emergency, On The Job, Recreation, , , ,

 You know those email jokes that go around saying things like:
“How Old is Grandpa?“
And Grandpa replies, “I was born before television, penicillin, polio shots,
frozen foods, Xerox, contact lenses, Frisbees, and the pill. There were no credit cards, laser beams, or ball-point pens.
Man had not invented pantyhose, air conditioners, dishwashers, or clothes dryers, and man hadn’t yet walked on the moon, etc. . . .”

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Now let’s switch to an isolated lighthouse in the 1970s, 1980s, etc. . . . and a different question:

Don’t you get bored? Continue reading Don’t You Get Bored? →