- bringing a little life into your lights
British Columbia (BC) lighthouses mostly have diesel generators unless they are close enough to a large town or city to allow a power cable to run to them. So how does one refuel a lighthouse as most of them are sitting fairly high above the water line and very distant from a local gas station? Well, thanks to […]
The photo above appeared on Facebook recently. It is a photo of the Þrídrangar lighthouse (pronounciation unknown) in Iceland. According to Timothy Harrison, lighthouse historian and Editor in Chief of Lighthouse Digest magazine, the photo was first posted on I heart Reykjavík on Facebook. There they say: How would you like to be a lighthouse guard in […]
This story could be titled Oh no, not another accident or to be more truthful How to give a helicopter a bath! If you keep up with aviation news you may have heard about a Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) helicopter that crashed in the Arctic.
What a nice surprise! Today on Facebook the lighthouse keeper, Colin Toner, who is residing at my old workplace at McInnes Island posted a fantastic video of the lighthouse. Please watch in full screen to get the full effect. Watch as the MBB105 helicopter approaches the island in the rain. You can see the rain […]
I was a smoker when I arrived on my first lighthouse at Pulteney Point in December 1969. I was twenty-two (22) years old, married, with no children when I arrived. My wife, Karen, and I had never had to order supplies for a month. Our first order was loaded with chocolate bars and stuff we […]
A trip by helicopter up the west coast of Vancouver island to Carmanah Point October 25, 2006 To see what part of the west coast of Vancouver island is like from the air, check out Mike Shepherd’s article Coast Guard Bell 212 Helicopter Trip. There are some really nice shots of the Pacific Ocean and familiar lighthouses. – […]
One of the problems with moving to another lighthouse was that everything had to be crated and or well-packed to withstand the dangers of the transportation and handling by ship and/or helicopter. It also had to survive unexpected falls and/or water damage, both fresh and salt. When my wife Karen and I first moved on […]
The following memory was passed on to me by Margit Losel. It happened during their time at Boat Bluff in the years 1977 – 1980. They were lucky! They were able to get off and on the lighthouse. Some stations were too isolated for this method to work. – retlkpr ************************* We were living on […]
Some of you may wonder why the number of stories about re-supplying the lighthouses exceeds the others on this site by a large margin (lots more coming!). Next to the family and job, the arrival of the mail and groceries was the most important event in the life of the lightkeeping family. Imagine no telephone, […]
In the days before portable radios and instant communications, we were always apprehensive about the day we headed out for holidays. First there was the weather which as everone knows on the West Coast of Canada is always unpredictable even with modern weather forecasting. We observed the weather but rarely got any weather forecasts. Next […]