- bringing a little life into your lights
Well, in the beginning was the Lightkeeper’s Voice, Fog Bell, Sirens, Dynamite, Cannons and other assorted methods, and then came the Hand Horn. First of all was the Powers Brothers Hand Horn used in the days before mechanical equipment. Many were used up until the early 1950s. and were still kept on station in case of emergencies […]
The Diaphone Fog Signal by Jeff Laser reprinted with permission from Terry Pepper and his website Diaphones were a once familiar sound heard throughout the Great Lakes from the early 1920s until the late 1960s / early 1970s when most lighthouses were automated. 120 such installations existed on both U.S. and Canadian waterways in the 1950s. […]
– Roger Mogg (Assistant keeper on McInnes Island 1983 – 1987) Back in the early 1980’s I was offered the job as a assistant lightkeeper at McInnes Island. I was told at the time that this offer was only for couples, not for singles (this turned out to be false information). I had just broken up with […]
The article below was written in 2003 by Sherrill Kitson, wife of the lightkeeper Rene Kitson, and herself a qualified lightkeeper at the time. This story will illustrate why lightkeepers, and not electronic sensors, are better weather observers. We can smell the fog, and many a mariner will back us up on that statement. Now, […]
A return to foghorns a boon to safety even in age of GPS by Glen Farrough, Vancouver Sun, September 08, 2011 It’s been roughly eight years since the Coast Guard silenced most of the foghorns on our coastal lighthouses, for a saving of $75,000 per year. The main reason used to justify this move was […]