Lighthouse Chronicles – Twenty Years on the B.C. Lights
These are the first-hand stories of Flo Anderson and her husband Trevor and their four children as left left the city life in 1961 for a life on the British Columbia lighthouses.
They worked as lighthouse keepers for the next twenty years at Lennard Island, Barrett Rock, McInnes Island, Green Island and Race Rocks.
The book is interesting as it is written from a woman’s point of view.
Many B&W photos give illustration to the narrative.
Paperback: 224 pages Publisher:Harbour Publishing (1998) Language: English ISBN-10: 155017181X ISBN-13: 978-1550171815 Product Dimensions: (9″ x 6″) 22.9 x 15.2 x 2 cm Availability: Used (Out of Stock)
– 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.
In the early days women were not listed as lighthouse personnel, even though they often did the work of a second man. A lady in the US has written a book about the “Ladies of the Lights” on the Great Lakes. The following quote from the Great Lakes Echo will explain more:
However, the people who operated the lighthouses, often in bleak and isolated conditions, are less known – especially the 52 women who served as keepers and assistant keepers for more than a century on lakes Michigan, Superior and Huron and the Detroit River. Continue reading Book – Women on a Lighthouse? You Bet!→
The lighthouse had not always been a lighthouse. Once it had been a beautiful bride but now she stood up tall and still, shimmering against the sky, her body clad in her white dress, silky smooth.
The bride stared out to sea with her one yellow eye, slowly searching for her groom. She had stood there for so long that her feet had become part of the rocks and sand that she stood on, attaching her to the ground forever.
It was a beautiful sunset. The sky was rosy pink, the wishing star was shining above and a cool breeze was gently blowing. The bride wished that her dress would swish in the breeze but she had stood there for so long waiting for her groom that her dress had become stiff and moulded to her body. Continue reading “The Bride” – A Lighthouse Story→
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→
