Tag Archives: book

About a Comment Received

A while ago I wrote a short review on a new book called the Lightkeeper’s Menagerie by Elinor DeWire.

After the publication of the review, Elinor wrote in the Comments section of my website:

This website is absolutely wonderful! I’ve been spending a lot of time on it of late reading all the posts and stories. Kudos to you for preserving this important story! Thank you as well for the nice comments about my book, The Lightkeepers’ Menagerie. I hope you’ve picked up a copy. If not, I’ll send you one if you provide a mailing address. The book has several stories from BC, including Ivory Island and McInnes. If you visit my website you’ll see my other lighthouse books. I’m working on my 18th lighthouse book now. Guardians of the Lights is my favorite and includes some BC stories. Chris Mills read it while serving at Ivory and contacted me; we remain fast friends. He is coming to BC in July and I hope to see him then. He visited me in 2010 and spoke to a nonprofit group I chaired at the time–wonderful man who’s done much to preserve lighthouse history. Currently, I’m writing a book about BC lightkeepers, to be published in 2013 by Paradise Cay Publications, Arcata, CA. I was in BC for two weeks in early June and met Milt Magee at Cape Mudge and the Tiglmanns at Nootka. I’d love to make contact with more of the keepers. Could you help me with that? I am interested in telling their stories and preserving the history. Pictures are really helpful too, as they convey so much of the story and augument the text. I know the keepers (including you??) have scads of pictures. Fisheries is lax to put me in touch with serving keepers, due to the sensitivity about de-staffing. They say they want no more negative press and worry about what I’ll print. I am not planning a tirade in print about de-staffing. I think anyone who reads my books and articles knows how important it is to keep lighthouses staffed–the message is clearly implied in the narrative without hammers and nails and crucifixtion of “The Powers.” People grow to love the stories and then grasp the issues. I know this chapter of history is coming to a close someday–later rather than sooner, I hope–and it needs to be documented and saved. I’m doing my best to make that happen. You’re doing your part. Thanks again for this wonderful website. I look forward to hearing from you.

[private]My email is elinordewire@gmail.com. My address is P.O. Box 1022, Seabeck, WA 98380. Feel free to share my contact info with any keepers, active or retired, and let them know I’d enjoy emailing with them.  Best wishes–Elinor DeWire [/private]

So, any lightkeepers or others want to help Elinor, please contact her through her webpage.

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This email was dated June 22, 2012. Boy am I late! Well, finally, today, I got around to answering it. Please drop by her website if you any interest at all in stories about lighthouses. Elinor has lots!

I also see she has a list of Lighthouse Articles, some of which sound very interesting. I will ask her if I can reprint a couple. Maybe I can talk her into writing one especially for this website on BC lighthouse keepers. – retlkpr

Book – Last Lights: The Hand-Wound Lighthouses of the Bahamian Islands

The author of this book, Annie Potts, wrote me when I first started this new format of my website. She was enquiring if I had any source for large kerosene mantles for the three remaining Bahamas lighthouses. Unfortunately I did not know of any sources. Continue reading Book – Last Lights: The Hand-Wound Lighthouses of the Bahamian Islands

Manual – 1970 Rules and Instructions for Lighthouse-Keepers

Published in 1970, this book laid down the rules and regulations for Lighthouse-Keepers. It was the LAW!

Unfortunately I do not have the cover for it. If anyone out there has a cover photo of the book please send it to me. It was a white 8-1/2 x 11 plastic covered book with a black graphic of a lighthouse on it, with some red colouration.

 

Download the complete book here in PDF format (4.25 MBs – right click the link for more options)

If you wish to print the book, the published size was 8.5″ x 11″ (21.5 x 28 cms.) 

Book Review – The Light Between Oceans

A new book has been released about the adventures of a lighthouse family on an Australian lighthouse. The title is The Light Between Oceans. The lighthouse is fictitious as  the story is a fictional and moral adventure, but the reviews show that the author, Ms. M. L. Stedman has a masterpiece here. Read some of the reviews below and see what you think. If anyone has read the book, please comment.

When Tom decides to become a lighthouse keeper, he’s given a placement at Janus Rock. It’s a tough posting on a square mile of green, accessible only by boat, that ”dangled off the edge of the cloth like a loose button that might easily plummet to Antarctica”. The closest community is Point Partageuse, a town long neglected by the outside world until the outside world found use for its young men in 1914. http://www.smh.com.au  Continue reading Book Review – The Light Between Oceans

Book – 1855 Lights for Lighthouses

This book first published in 1855 is a copy of the original produced by the Chance Brothers factory. From the handwritten prices and information, it appears to be a salesman’s copy which would have been given to the prospective buyer. As each light was specifically made for one location only, then this would have been a one-of-a-kind catalogue. 

Download the complete book here in PDF format 22.5 MBs (60+ pages) – right click the link for more options)

If you wish to print the book, this scanned version size was 8.5″ x 11″ (21.5 x 28 cms.) 

Manual – 1953 Rules and Instructions for Lighthouse-Keepers

Published in 1953, this book laid down the rules and regulations for Lighthouse-Keepers. It was the LAW!

Download the complete book here in PDF format (14.5 MBs – right click the link for more options)

If you wish to print the book, the published size was 6.5″ x 9.25″ (16.5 x 23.25 cms.) 

Manual – 1912 Rules and Instructions for Lighthouse-Keepers

Published in 1912, this book laid down the rules and regulations for Lighthouse-Keepers. It was the LAW!

 

Download the complete book here in PDF format (4.25 MBs – right click the link for more options)

If you wish to print the book, the published size was 6.5″ x 9.25″ (16.5 x 23.25 cms.) 

Manual – 1875 Rules and Instructions for Lighthouse-Keepers

Published in 1875, this book laid down the rules and regulations for Lighthouse-Keepers. It was the LAW!

Download the complete book here in PDF format (13.3 MBs – right click the link for more options)

If you wish to print the book, the published size was 6.5″ x 9.25″ (16.5 x 23.25 cms.) 

The Lighthouse Keeper – A Day in the Life

Scottish lighthouses

In December 2011 I received a Guestbook entry from a Scottish ex-lighthouse keeper who said “I was made redundant from the service in 1992 and the last Keeper retired from the service in 1998 . . .” His name is Peter Hill and he has written a few poems about his life and also a book. The poem I like the best is reproduced below. 

Peter was a keeper in Scotland and I was a keeper in Canada, and we have never met before, but he wrote in the poem below:

“I dress in darkness yet know my style, my clothes on dresser neatly piled.”

Now only a lighthouse keeper would write about this fact about dressing in the darkness to go on the morning shift. I did the same thing, as it allows our eyes to adjust to the darkness so we can see better before going outside to observe the weather for the upcoming weather report.

I hope you enjoy the poem as much as I did.

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The Lighthouse Keeper – A day in the Life

In softest echo and muffled beep, I am awakened from my shallow sleep
Anticipating that very call! It’s a wonder how I sleep at all
Accustomed and by ritual seed refreshed in body by slumbers need
My motions slow and gentle take, while sleeping Mags, am careful not to awake
I dress in darkness yet know my style, my clothes on dresser neatly piled.
Shirt and jumper left till last, washed and ready for my watch.

Just as quietly as before, I open out the double door, closing soft and handle gripped on well oiled hinge in jam it slips Continue reading The Lighthouse Keeper – A Day in the Life

Book – The Lightkeepers’ Menagerie

 The Lightkeepers’ Menagerie: Stories of Animals at Lighthouses

– by Elinor De Wire

 

 Hardcover: 328 pages

  • Publisher: Pineapple Press (March 15, 2007)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1561643904
  • ISBN-13: 978-1561643905
  • Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches

I came across this book while doing a Google search for another author. Google Books has given a few free pages to read from this book. From these preview pages I think I will be buying the book. It sounds absolutely wonderful.

“Elinor De Wire has been writing about lighthouses and their keepers since 1972. During that time she found that hundreds of lighthouse animals wandered into her research notes and photo collection. This book is the story of all these cold-nosed, whiskered, wooly, hoofed, horned, slithery, buzzing, feathered, and finned keepers of the lights. Where else would a dog learn to ring a fogbell; a cat go swimming and catch a fish for its supper; or a parrot cuss the storm winds rattling its cage? Continue reading Book – The Lightkeepers’ Menagerie