Category Archives: Storms

Life on Pine Island c. 1950s

Here is another story from Ms. Juanita (Swanson) DuLong. She was a young girl on most of these stations, but living there, and hearing stories from her parents, she has created   lighthouse memories from the 1950s time. Her older stories are found here and here.

Her husband Roy scanned some nice photos of Pine Island station, but unfortunately they are way too small to show here. When he has time to make larger ones, I will add them.

Roy sent some more scans, but they are limited, but I have posted them because they show details not available before – e.g. the A-frame highline setup.

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Pine Island houses - photo Juanita Swanson

There may be somewhere in the world a place foggier than Pine Island lighthouse, but it’s hard to believe. The horn was often on for days on end, and became only another background noise. A lighthouse tender could arrive in clear weather, and radio that Pine was under a doughnut of fog. Continue reading Life on Pine Island c. 1950s

Recent Storm on Cape Scott 2012

Cape Scott on a good day - photo Harvey Humchitt, Jr.

Every winter the West coast of Canada is pounded by storms with Hurricane Force winds (scale 12 on the Beaufort Scale).

Below you can read what the lightkeeper at Cape Scott lighthouse posted for this April 02, 2012 storm. The keeper, Harvey Humchitt, Jr. posted this information on his Facebook page.

02:05 PST MONDAY APRIL 2, 2012 HURRICANE FORCE WIND WARNING FOR CAPE SCOTT.
Wind southwest 10 to 20 knots (18 to 37km/hr) increasing to southeast 20 to 30 knots (37 to 55km/hr) this afternoon and to 30 to gales 40 knots (55 to 74km/hr) early this evening. Wind increasing to southeast storm force 50 to 60 knots (92 to 111km/hr) near midnight except HURRICANE FORCE 65 knots (120km/hr) near the headlands Monday morning. Wind diminishing to southwest 25 to gales 35 (46 to 64km/hr) near noon Monday.

04:43 PST MONDAY APRIL 2, 2012 Hurricane is here full force hittin us hard at 80 knots 150km/hr, and a ton of rain

07:34 PST MONDAY APRIL 2, 2012 We were hit by almost 200km/hr winds that took out two storm doors, the crown on a spare house, the siding on a spare house and flooded our engine room. Winds are still gusting to 180km/hr, and horizontal rain.

11:38 PST Final Hurricane status report, winds hit 230 km/hr, lots of heavy rain that dumped 40mm of rain and the seas hit near 30ft. Damage done, two screen doors lost, siding on one house gone, crown on roof…gone, flashing for roofing…..gone, 3 trees fell, bassement in spare house flooded, engine room flooded and a stick punctured a hole in our sat dish for the tv but still works. In all….a typical British Columbia North Coast Hurricane. This is probably the last Hurricane force wind we will see now until the fall.

I do not think I have ever seen a storm like this when I was on the lighthouses – at least one  quite as strong in intensity. Climate change? 

Below are some photos Harvey made after the storm had gone through. Note the stormy seas and ragged clouds. Remember, these were made after the storm passed over. During the storm you cannot even get outside the house sometimes.  (All photos credited to Harvey Humchitt, Jr.

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Triangle Island Light and the HMCS Galiano

Back side of Triangle Island - Jack Bowerman photo from http://www.roughradio.ca

On the morning of October 30, 1918 in the vicinity of Triangle Island lighthouse, the HMCS Galiano foundered and sank.

Not much is known about the sinking, but the story is associated with the Triangle Island lighthouse because that was their last port of call. Triangle Island is remembered as the most remote, isolated, lonely and wind-swept piece of rock in which the government placed a lighthouse.

A friend of mine, John MacFarlane, created a website about all things nautical. In an email notification I learned about an excellent historical record of the HMCS Galiano written by Stephen Rybak.

Here is a taste from the article:

Miss Emily Brunton had been hired by the six bachelors staffing the radio station as a housekeeper. The 35 year–old Miss Brunton arrived on Triangle Island in 1916 and had introduced a little civility and good cooking to the station. It was to be her first trip off the wind-swept and treeless rock in 18 months.

Rybak, Stephen (2012) The Wreck of HMCS Galiano 1918. Nauticapedia.ca2012. 

 

Continue reading by clicking on the Nauticapedia link in blue just above.

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Triangle Island lighthouse was discontinued only a few years later, but an interesting sidelight to the story is that the main light is now on display at the Sooke Regional Museum just outside Victoria, BC. See the photo below:

Triangle Island light - © Alec Provan

 

 

Let’s Play Russian Roulette with the Spirit Bear

You all know my feelings about the Enbridge Pipeline project (aka Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines) currently being proposed for British Columbia. I am definitely against it. During my years on the BC lighthouses I saw many examples of poorly managed mines and fisheries. Let us stop this one before it gets started and one oil spill creates havoc on our beautiful BC coast. Please read this student’s opinion. – retlkpr

Posted by  from the Bishop’s University Student Newspaper

March 1, 2012 9:24 pm

Sure, they’re irreplaceable, but who cares?

We all like oil, because we like the benefits that come from oil: like our heat and our gasoline.  But we’re all hypocrites, because we don’t like to see the oil, pay for it, or sacrifice our lifestyles for it. —more

Click for larger image

Grocery Mishap at Kains Island (Quatsino) c.1975

CCGS Sir James Douglas

 The landing under the hook (aka highline) at Kains Island was a large basin at the back side. It looked like a very large boulder had been washed out from the hole. It was a bit tricky if the swell was running to bring the station inflatable in safely but we never had a accident in my three years on station. 

 

Ocean Sea foam - photo unknown photographer

After a SE winter storm the hole would fill up with kelp stems broken off the surrounding reefs by the large swells. The swells then pounded this kelp into a tan-coloured foam which drifted all over the ocean and blew up into the trees and hung there like lichen. It was quite light but sticky to the touch.

One winter day we were expecting the supply ship with groceries, mail, etc. One of the Coast Guard buoy tenders arrived rocking and rolling in the swells in Quatsino Sound. Over the side went the workboat and then began the process of off-loading the supplies into her. We could see the orange-suited crew members on deck and in the boat but could not recognize anyone. 

Lowering station boat into the hole - note the foam - photo retlkpr

As we watched the workboat pull away from the shelter of the ship we were called on the radio by an unknown voice that the boat was on its way in. We acknowledged and commented that this appeared to be a new mate. Always fun to see how much experience they had unloading under a highline. 

The boat rolled across the half kilometer distance between us and the ship, sometimes disappearing completely in the swells. The mate brought the boat closer to shore and lined up with the small bay, all the while ploughing a path through the foam which was pushed aside by the bow. As the boat neared the gap the mate rode a swell in under the hook and all but completely disappeared! 

We could see well from the winch shed and the highline deck but only heads were showing in the workboat – the rest had completely disappeared! During the night the storms had lashed the kelp to pulp and filled the gap with sea foam to almost a metre deep! The workboat rode in on the swell and right under the foam. 

The gap from seaward at low tide - photo retlkpr

 Pushing the foam aside, the crew grabbed the lowered hook, slipped on a set of slings and signalled Haul Away. As the bonnet sling left the well of the workboat it also left a nice clean spot in the boat. On landing on the highline deck above, it was discovered that everything was covered with the sea foam, but, all was OK on the inside of the cartons of groceries and bags of mail although a bit sticky on the outside. The foam, although appearing quite dense, was actually quite dry and no harm was done. 

The mate was a little more cautious when he came in with the second load. 

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 More information about the sea foam. Below is the content of an email I received in March 17, 2008.

HERE’S SOMETHING WE’LL NEVER SEE………WHIPPED OCEAN……..AMAZING!

Suddenly the shoreline north of Sydney was transformed into the Cappuccino Coast . Foam swallowed an entire beach and half the nearby buildings, including the local lifeguards’ centre, in a freak display of nature at Yamba in New South Wales .

One minute a group of teenage surfers were waiting to catch a wave, the next they were swallowed up in a giant bubble bath. The foam was so light that they could puff it out of their hands and watch it float away.

Boy in the bubble bath: Tom Woods, 12, emerges from the clouds of foam after deciding that surfing was not an option

It stretched for 30 miles out into the Pacific in a phenomenon not seen at the beach for more than three decades. Scientists explain that the foam is created by impurities in the ocean, such as salts, chemicals, dead plants, decomposed fish and excretions from seaweed. All are churned up together by powerful currents which cause the water to form bubbles. These bubbles stick to each other as they are carried below the surface by the current towards the shore. As a wave starts to form on the surface, the motion of the water causes the bubbles to swirl upwards and, massed together, they become foam.

The foam ‘surfs’ towards shore until the wave ‘crashes’, tossing the foam into the air.

Whitewash: The foam was so thick it came all the way up to the surf club

‘It’s the same effect you get when you whip up a milk shake in a blender,’ explains a marine expert. ‘The more powerful the swirl, the more foam you create on the surface and the lighter it becomes.’ In this case, storms off the New South Wales Coast and further north off Queensland had created a huge disturbance in the ocean, hitting a stretch of water where there was a particularly high amount of the substances which form into bubbles. As for 12-year-old beach goer Tom Woods, who has been surfing since he was two, riding a wave was out of the question ‘Me and my mates just spent the afternoon leaping about in that stuff,’ he said.

‘It was quite cool to touch and it was really weird. It was like clouds of air – you could hardly feel it.’

Children play among all the foam which was been whipped up by cyclonic conditions.

The Awfully Long Thermometer!

 In an earlier story I wrote about how the lighthouse keepers have been doing sea water samples since the early 1930s – some of the oldest observations on the BC coast!

Now, with satellites we can get different temperatures of the sea – Sea Surface Temperatures for one – similar to what the lightkeepers do, but globally.

Sea surface temperatures have a large influence on climate and weather. For example, every 3 to 7 years a wide swath of the Pacific Ocean along the equator warms by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius. This warming is a hallmark of the climate pattern El Niño, which changes rainfall patterns around the globe, causing heavy rainfall in the southern United States and severe drought in Australia, Indonesia, and southern Asia. On a smaller scale, ocean temperatures influence the development of tropical cyclones (hurricanes and typhoons), which draw energy from warm ocean waters to form and intensify. – NASA Earth Observatory Continue reading The Awfully Long Thermometer!

Of Ice and Men

Following along with yesterday’s story about travel on a CCGS ice breaker, and with the permission of the author, Pamela Coulston, I am reprinting her article here about life on Canadian Coast Guard ice breakers servicing the north and the lighthouses. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

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Of Ice and Men

Surprisingly, everyone made it to dinner, they also made it to breakfast and lunch. The

Photo courtesy of Gerald Rohatensky

Coast Guard icebreaker Sir Wilfrid Laurier was taking a whipping from the weather in the middle of the Bering Sea. But not a meal was missed.

While the two cooks dished up three squares, the seas served up a storm that included winds gusting to 90 knots and 10-metre waves that broke over the bow, drenching the bridge four storeys above.

The captain ordered all loose items secured and all outer decks off-limits – any one of these larger waves could wash a person overboard to their death in near freezing waters. Continue reading Of Ice and Men

The Vanlene and I

I received the following email the other day promoting an article on a friend’s website: 

The freighter Vanlene ran up on the rocks on Austin Island in the Broken Group islands on March 14, 1972. She was carrying 300 Dodge Colt automobiles while enroute to Vancouver BC from Japan. The crew was rescued and taken to Port Alberni. How she ended up on the rocks is still a matter of conjecture but it appears that the Master simply did not know where he was at the time of impact (he thought he was off of the coast of Washington) and his navigational aids were inoperable. See the article at Nauticapedia


View Larger Map Continue reading The Vanlene and I

Risking it All – Oil on Our Coast

 

Risking it All – Oil on our Coast is a short film that outlines the plans for the pipeline and tanker route and what it means for our beautiful coast. It is produced by Twyla Roscovich in association with Hartley Bay & Gitga’at Nation, Oil on our Coast is meant to inspire, empower and help fuel the battle to save what sustains us. – Twyla Roscovitch

Risking it All – Oil on our Coast from Twyla Roscovich on Vimeo. Continue reading Risking it All – Oil on Our Coast

Ocean Water Samples

One of the duties of a lighthouse keeper on some stations, was to do a daily Sea Water sample. It was started very early on (see the story here), before the advent of Global warming, and the observed data has been beneficial in many ways as you will see at the bottom..

Kains Island (Quatsino) lighthouse

In the above-mentioned story from Kains Island lighthouse, the samples started in 1935, so we have seventy-seven (77) years of ocean data. Also in the story is the fact that in the early years . . . 

. . . the small glass bottles of sea water with cork stoppers were stored in wooden boxes with many little squares, one for each bottle1. These boxes would be shipped out when the supply ship re-supplied the station once a year, usually in July.  Continue reading Ocean Water Samples