Category Archives: Weather

The West Coast Trail

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The West Coast Trail is a 75 km (47 mi) long backpacking trail following the southwestern edge of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. It was built in 1907 to facilitate the rescue of survivors of shipwrecks along the coast, part of the treacherous Graveyard of the Pacific. It is now part of Pacific Rim National Park (Parks Canada and Wikipedia) and is often rated by hiking guides as one of the world’s top hiking trails.

The West Coast Trail is open from May 1 until September 30. It is accessible to hikers outside of this period but Parks Canada does not guarantee the accessibility of services (such as search and rescue) in the off season. It was originally known as the Dominion Lifesaving Trail (sometimes misidentified as the West Coast Lifesaving Trail).-Wikipedia

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Video courtesy of Parks Canada website

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My daughter and her friend just finished hiking the West Coast Trail this Summer 2013 and thoroughly enjoyed it. (photos on Facebook) It is rough, it is challenging, but it is an adventure, and it is fun! The trail passes by two manned lighthouses (Pachena -photo above, and Carmanah – photo below) which date back to the time when the trail was Continue reading The West Coast Trail

Reprint – Electric Lights Alter Daily Rhythms

Circadian_Cycle
Photo credit: Dana Le via Flickr http://bit.ly/14zepJ9

I wrote an article entitled I Love Nightshift awhile ago. It is true, and now I know why I felt so healthy working on the lighthouse – lack of electric lights! It may not be for all people, but it did work for me. Working the night shift was done mostly in the dark as we had to watch for fog, visibility markers, lights from ships, flares, sea conditions, clouds – all only visible in the dark without electric lights.

The title and text for this article are from the.scientist.com website.

Electric Lights Alter Daily Rhythms

Humans’ circadian clocks become skewed when they are exposed to electric lights but revert to a schedule more in tune with the sun when they go camping.

By Kate Yandell | August 6, 2013

Long-term exposure to electric lighting has fundamentally altered humans’ circadian rhythms, according to a study published in Current Biology last week (August 1). But a week camping away from electric lights swiftly reset eight study participants’ circadian clocks.

“What’s remarkable is how, when we’re exposed to natural sunlight, our clocks perfectly become in sync in less than a week to the solar day,” coauthor Kenneth Wright, a University of Colorado Boulder integrative physiologist, said in a press release. Read more . . .

First seen in a Facebook article, and later in LiveScience.

 [private] For the first week of the study, participants went about their ordinary routines at home. Next, they all went camping in the Rocky Mountains for a week without flashlights or electronics.

Throughout the study, the participants wore wrist monitors that logged light intensity, time of day, and activity. At the end of each week, the researchers measured the participants’ melatonin levels, which indicate circadian cycle status.

While going about their ordinary routine, the participants went to sleep at 12:30 a.m. on average, experiencing on onset of melatonin about 2 hours prior. In the wilderness, the participants’ circadian clocks were advanced by 2 hours; they experienced an earlier onset of melatonin, coinciding with sunset, and went to sleep sooner.

The experiment also showed that a week in the wilderness reduced the differences among the participants’ daily rhythms, with the schedules of early birds and night owls converging.[/private]

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By Cari Nierenberg, Contributing writer   |   August 01, 2013 12:00pm ET
 
 
A tent is staked at the edge of a mountain lake.
Going camping for a week can reset your internal daily rhythms, a new study shows.
Credit: Camping photo via Shutterstock

A weeklong camping trip can help reset a person’s internal biological clock, so that it will be easier to wake up in the morning and feel more alert, a new study suggests.

After study participants spent more time exposed to natural light and less time in artificial lighting, researchers found their bedtimes and wake-up times shifted, both moving up to two hours earlier. 

“After camping, the night owls in the group showed the greatest shifts in the timing of their internal clocks,” said study researcher Kenneth P. Wright, Jr., an associate professor of physiology at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

“Night owls looked more similar to earlier morning types,” Wright said. In other words, night owls started keeping an early-to-bed, early-to-rise schedule, and they said they felt more alert in the morning.

This study was the first to quantify the impact of our modern lifestyle — of spending more time indoors in artificial light and less time outdoors in natural light — on human’s internal biological clocks, or circadian rhythms, the researchers said.

The findings are published online today (Aug. 1) in the journal Current Biology.

Increasing natural light

In the study, researchers looked at eight adults with an average age of 30 who did not have any sleep problems. Participants spent one week living their usual schedules of working, attending school, socializing, exercising, sleeping and waking, and they wore a wristwatchlike device that measured their light exposure. [Best Camping Spots in America’s Backyard]

Then they spent a week camping in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains in July. In the great outdoors, participants were exposed to sunlight and a campfire’s glow, but were not allowed to use any artificial light — meaning no computers, flashlights or cellphones.

Before the camping trip and after it ended, researchers measured levels of melatonin, a hormone that regulates sleep and wakefulness, as a marker for each participant’s individual biological clock. 

During the week of camping, the participants were exposed to four times more natural light, on average, compared with when they lived their normal lives, Wright said.

More natural light caused the participants’ internal clocks to become perfectly in sync with nature’s light and dark cycle, or the timing of sunrise and sunset, he pointed out.

“If people want to be more alert in the morning, they need to increase their exposure to natural lighting during the day, and decrease their exposure to electrical lighting in the evening,” Wright said.

But you don’t have to pitch a tent, unroll a sleeping bag and go camping to reap these benefits.

Wright suggested making an effort to get more natural light in the morning or at lunch by taking a walk and raising shades or blinds at home and at work. He also recommended dimming lights and reducing the intensity of artificial lights on computers, TVs, and other electronic devices an hour before bedtime.

“A flip of a light switch can be pretty powerful,” Wright said, adding that “light can be very arousing and alerting to the brain.”

Resetting internal clocks

“This study goes a considerable way toward showing the practical impact of light exposure on human biological clocks in the real world,” said Dr. Andrew Lim, a sleep neurologist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, who was not involved in the research.

Lim said the findings reveal how an artificial lighting environment — with insufficient light during the day and excessive light after sunset — can play an important role in causing people to fall asleep later and wake-up later. It leads to a misalignment between sleep-wake cycles and an individual’s internal biological clock.

Lim said that it’s difficult to attribute all of the observed effects in the study to differences in light exposure alone, because campers also had different activity levels and social schedules than they would at home.

He also mentioned that it’s unclear whether these results would hold true in other latitudes, during other seasons besides summer, and in different age groups. 

Editor’s Recommendations

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Joel N. Shurkin, ISNS Contributor   |   August 01, 2013 03:15pm ET
 
 
camping resets internal clock
Credit: FLorian via flickr | http://bit.ly/1bOnDE0

(ISNS) — Throughout most of human history, humans went to bed shortly after the sun went down and woke up in the morning as it rose. There were candles and later oil lamps, but the light was not very bright so people still went to bed early.

Then came Thomas Edison and the incandescent light bulb and everything changed, including our sleeping habits. So, if you have problems getting to sleep at night or are a miserable person to be around in the morning, blame him.

Scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder found that if you live by the sun’s schedule, you are more likely to go to bed at least an hour earlier, wake up an hour earlier, and be less groggy, because your internal clock and external reality are more in sync. The sun adjusts your clock to what may be its natural state, undoing the influence of light bulbs. 

The work is published in the current issue of the journal Current Biology.

The disconnect between the outside environment and sleep is one reason why even native Alaskans have problems sleeping in the almost endless days of the Arctic summers, and get depressed during the long nights of winters.

The subjects in the Colorado study lived more normal lives.

“We weren’t studying people who had sleep difficulties,” said Kenneth Wright, an integrative psychologist at Boulder. “The amount of sleep they got did not change. What changed was the timing of their sleep and the timing of their [internal] clock relative to when they slept.”

The researchers took eight adults, average age around 30, and followed them around the normal course of their lives for a week. The subjects spent most of their time indoors while working, studying, eating, and sleeping. Most of the light they encountered was artificial. Then, they sent the same people out camping.

Sleep and light were measured daily and the hormone melatonin every hour across 24 hours, once after the week of living at home, going to work, school, and then after a week of camping.

Melatonin is the “hormone of darkness,” said Namni Goel, a psychologist and sleep researcher at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Scientists use the hormone to measure photoperiods, or the physiological response that organisms have to cycles of daylight and darkness. 

“It rises at night naturally, and falls during the day, suppressed by light,” said Goel.

Melatonin also drops the body’s core temperature, making it easier to sleep. People often take melatonin pills to help them fall asleep, she said.

After the week’s study indoors, the Colorado subjects went camping in the Rockies. Instead of artificial lighting, they had only sunshine during the day and campfires at night. Wright estimates the light from the sun was four times as intense as what they experienced indoors. The nature of the light also changed during the day. Think of the bright white light of midday and the golden glow that often precedes sunset.

After their week of camping, researchers measured the subjects’ melatonin levels again.

The researchers found that the onset of melatonin shifted two hours earlier, and the subjects’ actual sleep shifted more than an hour earlier. Their bodies were recalibrating themselves, Wright explained.

When they woke in the morning in their normal lives, the melatonin and the external time were in conflict. They were waking up, but the melatonin in their bodies was telling them they should still be asleep. That might account for their still feeling sleepy, Wright said.

When they were out in the outdoors, the melatonin levels and the sun cycle were more aligned–the levels went down as the sun rose and before they woke up. They were subject to more light — sunlight — for the majority of the day.

The relationship between light and sleep and how much sleep a person needs has been the subject of several classic experiments.

Some involving putting subjects in deep, totally dark caves for weeks at a time have discovered that the 24-hour-day is almost exactly right for our bodies. The average amount of time our bodies consider a day comes to 24.3 hours, Goel said.

Goel and other Colorado scientists agree that the experiment was small, with only eight subjects, which limits what can be concluded. Nonetheless, the findings justify more experiments like it.

And more camping.

Inside Science News Service is supported by the American Institute of Physics. Joel Shurkin is a freelance writer based in Baltimore. He is the author of nine books on science and the history of science, and has taught science journalism at Stanford University, UC Santa Cruz and the University of Alaska Fairbanks. [/private]

The Lighthouse of Maracaibo

 

What is the Lighthouse of Maracaibo? Where is it?

Well, first of all it is not a lighthouse, so if you are not interested please continue on to another article, but I think you will find this fascinating.


View Larger Map

Why is then called a lighthouse? Well, it can be seen from many miles away for over 160 nights a year over Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela. I would never have known about it except that my article antennae are tuned to anything lighthouse. When I heard about it, I just had to investigate and bring it to your attention. This is quite unique and the only place in the world that has this phenomena in such intensity.

It is said to have the hottest flash density rate in the world, with an annual average of 181 lightning flashes per square kilometre.During peak months there can be as many as fifty (50) discharges every minute. That is a nearly continuous thunderstorm with up to 20,000 flashes of lightning per night. That is a lot of lightning – the most persistent thunderstorm of the world!

From Wikipedia:

The storms (and associated lightning) are likely the result of the winds blowing across the Maracaibo Lake and surrounding swampy plains. These air masses inevitably meet the high mountain ridges of the Andes, the Perijá Mountains (3,750m), and Mérida’s Cordillera, enclosing the plain from three sides. The heat and moisture collected across the plains creates electrical charges and, as the air masses are destabilized at the mountain ridges, result in almost continual thunderstorm activity.

The phenomenon is characterized by almost continuous lightning, mostly within the clouds, which is produced in a large vertical development of clouds that form large electric arcs between 2 and 10 km in height (or more). The lightning tends to start approximately one hour after dusk.

Among the major modern studies there is the one done by Melchor Centeno, who attributes the origin of the thunderstorms to closed wind circulation in the region.

[media url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRvpM01VTFU” width=”400″ height=”350″]

Reprint – “Stand” – An Adventure Documentary

 

Stand – Power Teaser

 [media url=”http://vimeo.com/52119128″ width=”400″ height=”350″]

[private]https://ccanadaht3.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Vimeo-.mp4[/private]

 from  PLUS

 

STAND, presented by Quiksilver Waterman, will take viewers on a journey through the waters of B.C.’s west coast. Through the stories of an aboriginal high school class building their own stand-up paddleboards as a form of protest, the efforts of expedition stand-up paddler Norm Hann, and the powerful surfing of iconic west coast native Raph Bruhwiler, the diversity of people, landscape and wildlife that would be affected by an oil spill
will be articulated. STAND will take you to the core of the issue and unfurl the soul of B.C.’s west coast one paddle stroke at a time.

Cedar Standup Paddleboard

The crew is currently raising funds through the popular crowd-sourcing platform IndieGoGo, in order to complete post-production and bring this story into the mainstream consciousness. You can become a champion of the Great Bear and help protect our precious coastlines by donating to the project and in return receive some great rewards.

IndieGoGo Fundraiser: indiegogo.com/standfilm

Created by Anthony Bonello and Nicolas Teichrob

Music:
Original Score by Alan Poettcker (myspace.com/thesekidswearcrowns)

Sound Design:
Gregor Phillips (cinescopesound.com/)

Cinematography: Anthony Bonello and Nicolas Teichrob
Editing: Nicolas Teichrob

Additional footage courtesy of:
Adam DeWolfe (adamdewolfe.com)
Pacific Wild (pacificwild.org)
Peter Yonemori

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STAND – a SUP adventure through the Great Bear Rainforest

 [media url=”http://vimeo.com/38708656″ width=”400″ height=”350″]

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October 23, 2012 –  “STAND” the new film from b4apres Media in association with Dendrite Studios will take you into the heart of the largest temperate rainforest on the planet—the Great Bear in British Columbia, Canada. Hung on the skeleton of a good ol’ fashioned adventure undertaken by a group of surfers, the potential effects of introducing super tankers to these pristine waters will be articulated. As the crew moves through this remote region under their own power, the landscape will be unfurled one paddle stroke at a time and punctuated by the faces and fears of the First Nation people who call this garden of Eden their home. Not just an efficient mode of transport, a stand up paddleboard expedition will be symbolic of “standing up” to preserve this last bastion of rainforest. Captured in cinematic High Definition, the film will bring the Enbridge Pipeline debate into the collective consciousness in a way that will have you fishing in your basement for that old fluorescent wetsuit.

Quiksilver Waterman has signed on as the presenting sponsor for STAND. Since the crew had the concept for the film last year, they have been searching for a partner to support the project. That partner, however, needed to be the right fit and believe in the cause, in protecting British Columbia’s West Coast. Thankfully Quiksilver Waterman along with the Quiksilver Foundation 1 share a strong commitment to the environment.

Norm Hann and Raph Bruhwhiler are both Quiksilver ambassadors and agreed to join the project from the beginning. Both are true waterman and dedicated to the protection of the waters that they derive so much enjoyment from as well as the occasional seafood platter. Having Quiksilver Waterman involved makes the perfect trilogy and will allows the filmmakers to illuminate the stories, adventures and landscapes that abound in this truly magic part of the world.

Long protected by the 1972 Trudeau government moratorium on crude oil tankers plying British Columbia’s north coast, these waters are now facing the risk of oil spill. Potentially, 225 Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCC) per year would each transport approximately 2 million barrells of oil through the Great Bear Rainforest. In context, today’s supertankers carry ten times the volume of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Put simply, the pristine marine and terrestrial ecosystems as well as the people of the Great Bear would likely not recover from such an incident.

This issue is perhaps the most important environmental issue in B.C. history. Whats more, a catastrophic oil spill could reach beyond borders and impact much of the Pacific North West coastline.

Visit the official Dogwood Initiative Website to learn more and find out how to get involved.

August 21, 2013Go see the film in Toronto.

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FOOTNOTE:

1 For years, Quiksilver and Roxy have been actively engaged in charitable activities, both locally and globally. Quiksilver recognises the concept of corporate social responsibility and benevolence. We want our philanthropic work to have impact beyond what we do as one company and believe that we can do this by coordinating the support of other organizations and individuals. The Quiksilver Foundation was formed to bring all of Quiksilver’s charitable giving under one umbrella. The Foundation commenced its activities as a private foundation in October of 2004.

With offices in Europe, Australia and America, Quiksilver has the capability of reaching people worldwide. Quiksilver has the vision of making a difference to community and environment through the Quiksilver Foundation.

The Quiksilver Foundation is a non-profit organization committed to benefiting and enhancing the quality of life for communities of boardriders across the world by supporting environmental, educational, health and youth-related projects.
The Quiksilver Foundation has a commitment to improve the quality of all our lives.
We desire to benefit:

Local Communities, including schools, local charities through support and outreach programs;

Major special projects and organizations sharing our focus on children, education, science, oceans and the environment.

Quitting Smoking – Not on a Lighthouse!

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 figured we would not be able to do without. Tobacco, as I rolled my own, was not a problem – two cans of Player’s tobacco should do for a month. 

When you live in the city with stores right at hand, you never consider how much you use in a month. It is used until it runs out and you buy more. Well, the tobacco supply was greatly underestimated. I ran out.

Next day I asked the senior lightkeeper, Walt Tansky, if I could borrow the station boat and run into the town of Sointula about 8 kms away. Walt said he had a better idea and invited me into his house. He headed for the basement and came back with a can of Player’s tobacco. IT was c-o-l-d!

Walt explained that he had quit smoking years ago and that a personal motive to quit was to keep a can of tobacco on hand in the freezer. It became a cushion against his addiction.

“But”, I said, “you quit years ago. This tobacco is that old?”

“No”, he siad, “It has been replaced many times.”

“Replaced?”

“Yes”, everytime a keeper runs out, he may borrow this can and replace it at the first available chance. It has been replaced many times – by fishermen, pilots, keepers, and campers.” Continue reading Quitting Smoking – Not on a Lighthouse!

Government Contracts to Paint Lighthouses

The title is a tiny bit misleading. The government is not contracting to paint the lighthouse (is not doing the job themselves using government personnel as in the olden days) but is contracting out to private persons to do the work previously done by government workers.

An interesting article on the Peggys1 Cove lighthouse in Nova Scotia says:

 

Peggys Cove lighthouse crumbling
Province, feds negotiate while structure suffers

 

However, dealing with the problem is not as straightforward as sending someone the tab. Peggys Cove is owned by the federal government, which is currently getting out of the lighthouse business. The Nova Scotia government is in negotiations to take over the site, but no date has been set for completion of the talks.

So who is going to paint Peggys Cove, and many other abandoned lighthouses?

One of the commenter’s on the above site made the following reply:

Here’s the link for all those interested in bidding. Go create an account on Merx and bid away your $400.00 to paint it.

http://www.merx.com/English/nonmember.asp?WCE=Show&TAB=1&State=1&hcode=DSmmOnl5zU6FVjU16CWLSQ%3D%3D

Now that Merx site is very interesting. It shows Canadian Public Tenders for jobs the Canadian Government puts out for bids. I searched but could not finds anything lighthouse-related, but maybe you will have better luck. Let me know if you find anything.

There are some interesting jobs available, but one thing comes to mind. What has happened to the Public Works Department of the Canadian Government? They used to do all the painting and construction projects..Does Public Works no longer exist?

Aha! I found it! It is now called Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC). They pay me my pension, but do they do anything else? Check out PWGSC website and see if you can find out.

Not much there about painting old lighthouses. Lots on procurement and disposal though. So I guess they just buy stuff and dispose of it when no longer needed. Is any reader working for PWGSC that can better fill us in on the workings of PWGSC?

So, unless the community is going to do the work and pay for the job itself, I guess Canadian lighthouse are headed for a dim future (pun intended).

FOOTNOTE:
1 Peggys Cove (2009 population: approx. 46), also known as Peggy’s Cove from 1961 to 1976, is a small rural community located on the eastern shore of St. Margarets Bay in Nova Scotia’s Halifax Regional Municipality.- Wikipedia

Another Lighthouse Destroyed by the Sea! 1967

 

Pine Island lighthouse after the storm

On February 18, 1967 at 00:30 hours, a giant wall of water slammed into Pine Island, destroying buildings and washing away equipment and personal possessions. [B&W photo left] The following article describes it well.
(If anyone knows the author, or or where this article came from, please let me know so I can give credit. It appeared with the photo on the left of the page and the page was numbered 13. Thanks.- JAC)

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Fury . . . and British Columbia

Pine Island, B.C. – The worst damage in the history of British Columbia’s coastal lighthouses was inflicted here ­recently when a 50 foot wall of water slammed into this tiny island during a raging storm. Continue reading Another Lighthouse Destroyed by the Sea! 1967

Return to Sisters at Christmas c. 1927

– as written by Elizabeth Kate (Stannard) Smithman (Wife of Henry Herbert Smithman who was Senior Keeper at Sisters Island 1927 – 1929)

We were there [Nanaimo, BC ] nearly three weeks and it was two days before Christmas then. I wanted to be back on the lighthouse for Christmas as Bert was there with the other three boys.

I phoned The Government Office to see if any boats were going up that way, but everyone was off on Christmas and New Year’s holidays. I went all around the wharf looking and asking anyone with a boat to please take us up to the lighthouse. No one wanted to go at any price! They knew the old gulf too well and didn’t want to risk it.

I kept going back and asking them to please take a chance and go. At last an older chap said “Alright, we will start out but I don’t think we will make it”. Continue reading Return to Sisters at Christmas c. 1927

Reprint – DFO Shutting Down Coast Guard Radio Stations, but Prince Rupert’s Will Be Expanded

 

I wrote an article on January 04, 2012 entitled MCTS To Lose Staff To Save Money. After that date, the department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO or F&O) have changed their plans. They are now closing whole stations instead of a removing a few men! The news article below is well written and explains what is planned for the BC coast. If all goes through we will have only two (2) MCTS stations on the whole BC coast, relying on mountaintop repeaters to reply to ships at sea.

I can also see soon that their plans will include again trying to de-staff the lighthouses. Pretty soon the whole BC coast will be bare of any support for boaters!

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By Alan S. Hale – The Northern View
Published: May 18, 2012 4:00 PM
Updated: May 18, 2012 4:59 PM

The Coast Guard communication monitoring station in Prince Rupert will be even more important to ensuring the safety of seafarers. The Prince Rupert station will be one of only two “modernized” coast guard stations in the entire province – the other one being in Sydney. Continue reading Reprint – DFO Shutting Down Coast Guard Radio Stations, but Prince Rupert’s Will Be Expanded

A Trip to Scarlett Point c. 1973

– as told to me by Jean (Bartle) Konkle (daughter of relief keeper Albert Bartle)

I remember going to Scarlett Point one Easter Weekend, the first time we (my husband Rodger and I) had been there. We traveled ten long dusty hours up mostly gravel road to Port Hardy . There we planned to catch a fish boat out to the island. But although the harbour at Port Hardy was glass, nobody would take us out.

Although we couldn’t afford it, we had only the long weekend, so we attempted to charter a helicopter, but they wouldn’t go out in this weather.

32 foot fishboat - photo Ray Morgan

We went back to the fish docks, where we found a 32 foot fish boat to take us out. It leaked diesel, and I lost my breakfast.

When we got to Scarlett, Ralph and Brian came out to meet us in the station boat. The waves were so high, we had to wait until the gunwhales of the fish boat were even with the 14 footer to transfer across. Continue reading A Trip to Scarlett Point c. 1973