The following extracts taken from early Victoria, British Columbia (BC) newspapers are credited to Leona Taylor for her excellent work in indexing the papers. Full information can be found here: ”Index of Historical Victoria Newspapers“, 2007-09.
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Captain Gaudin, Agent of Marine, has received details from David Logan, lineman at Clo-oose, regarding the wreckage washed ashore near Carmanah as recently reported by wireless despatches. Mr Logan’s report says that among the things found were 12 sacks of flour, 23 tins of coal oil, 2 50-gal barrels of coal oil, a case of bird seed and some broken things. At Ucluelet a bottle was found containing some pieces of paper, it having been thrown from Steamer President in Oct. Lumber seen floating off the Vancouver Island coast recently was probably from Schooner Yosemite which has arrived at San Francisco and reports having 60,000′ of lumber washed from her decks on Nov 27, when 30 miles from Columbia River. The coal oil found on Vancouver Island coast is supposed to have been part of that included in the cargo of the wrecked Schooner Argo consigned to the Tillamook lighthouse. [Colonist, 1909-12-07] Continue reading Lighthouse History – 36 (1909-12-07 to 1910-09-30)→
– from Jeannie (Hartt) Nielsen (daughter of Ed Hartt, Senior Keeper on Langara 1957 – 1963)
Smells Growing up on a total of five different west coast lighthouses I remember certain things that were common to them all. The best day was always supply day (see also the Groceries & Mail Categories). When we were on Langara lighthouse in the early years (1957 – 1963) we received supplies every three months. I can remember the first thing I listened for in the early morning of landing day was the clicking sound of the damper in the chimney of the kitchen’s oil stove. When I heard that I knew that there would be no supplies landed that day as the wind was too high.
One December I heard that dreaded sound twenty (20) days in a row, and each day the ship tried to bring our groceries. We would watch as it would come into view just off Langara Rocks. They would assess the landing conditions, then we would watch with growing dispair as it turned back to the safety of a nearby harbour. Finally on the 21st day, the supply tender (itself running out of provisions) was able to deliver our supplies. Continue reading I Remember . . . c. early 1960s→
When I was a teenager I always had stuff to repair, and my Father had drawers of spare stuff that I needed for the repairing.
In the wall of small drawers was one labelled Mise. These were very small drawers and the hand-written label on meical adhesive tape was also small and very hard to read.
In the Mise drawer were small nails. In my naivety I assumed that Mise was a special designation of Mice, and these small nails then became Mice Nails to me.
It was not until I was out and working did I discover they were actually called finishing nails, and the drawer label actually read Misc, which naturally stood for Miscellaneous!
So I will dedicate these pages to my Father, Alec F. Coldwell. This is Mise Tales One and I will post here miscellaneous things I find that are too short to make a full story. I do hope there will be many more Mise Tales later.
This song is by Westlife (Facebook link), a group that has been in the charts since 1998. It is from their final album “Greatest Hits” . The Irish group has said they will be splitting up after their final 2012 tour.
The album contains some older songs and four new ones including this one called “Lighthouse”. It is the band’s second compilation of greatest hits, following the 2002 release of “Unbreakable.”
This is how you go about saving a lighthouse. Work for it! Work together for it. Councillor Rob Lantz of Charlottetown electoral ward 3 (Brighton), Charlottetown, PEI, Canada has given me permission to repost this article here from his Ward 3 Brighton blog.
The Brighton Beach Range Front Light is a designated heritage resource under the city’s Zoning & Development Bylaw. The lighthouse was built in 1890. It is an iconic symbol of our nautical heritage and provides a scenic shoreline vista that is photographed as much as, maybe more than, any other site in Charlottetown.
Random photos pulled from the photo sharing site Flickr.
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.
The following extracts taken from early Victoria, British Columbia (BC) newspapers are credited to Leona Taylor for her excellent work in indexing the papers. Full information can be found here: ”Index of Historical Victoria Newspapers“, 2007-09.
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Many ex-Victorian seal hunters are on the Japanese sealing Schooner Matsu Maru, which recently put into Hesquoit and has proceeded on her sealing voyage off this coast on her way to Behring Sea, according to ProvincialConstable E McLeod of Clayoquot, who is in the city with an Indian woman, sentenced to one month’s imprisonment at Clayoquot for supplying liquor to other Indians. George Diehl, a well known local hunter, who has been hunting under the Japanese flag for 2 or 3 seasons, and 9 others, including a majority of Victorians. The Schooner has 9 hunting boats, on one white hunter is in charge of each boat, with 3 Japanese hunters. Captain Thompson is navigator of the vessel. The 2 Japanese who deserted from the Schooner at Hesquoit were captured at Clayoquot, after much trouble in reaching that village, and were returned on board when the Schooner was hove to off Lennard I lighthouse. She continued on her cruise after taking the deserters on board. Continue reading Lighthouse History – 35 (1909-04-21 to 1909-10-12 )→
The story I posted three days ago about the lighthouse for sale in Sitka, Alaska I found on this website called Completely Coastal. The website is a delightful mix of all things creative which are found by, or taken from the sea.
If you missed the story, click on the photo left to take you to the actual Sitka lighthouse story on my website. A fascinating place to own.
While researching the source of the term offiical navigational aid and the location and price of the home-built lighthouse for sale, I contacted the owner of Completely Coastal. Her name is Maya and she loves designing things from the sea.
Many of the advertisements on the right side of her website are also for products created from the sea. Her blog details in photos and text the creation of many of these products. I just love the driftwood Christmas tree. How many lighthouse keepers will have one of these in future years?
Take a look at her website. Drop a comment or two. Enjoy!
It seems that this guy in Sitka, Alaska built a house and lighthouse and had it approved as an Official Navigational Aid by the US Coast Guard as the Rockwell Lighthouse. The place is for sale (January 2012). Attached below is the advertisement from Sitka Realty service.
Anyone interested? It’s a steal!
Some lovely photos of the inside and outside of this house on Old House Dreams website.
No, the title does not mean I have gone a wee bit balmy. This article is about finding things but not on the beach. It is also not really about lighthouses, but does take place on, or near a lighthouse where my wife Karen and I were first stationed.
When I saw the photo below it brought back many memories of our first lighthouse at Pulteney Point, Malcolm Island.
Pulteney Point lighthouse is located between Port McNeil and Port Hardy on Vancouver Island, British Columbia (see map below). It is still manned.
In 1901 Finnish settlers made Malcolm Island their home – see a short version of the story here.
Pulteney Point
When we arrived at the lighthouse in 1969 there were still traces of the settlements visible in the woods between the lighthouse and the town of Sointula. Old buildings, parts of wharves, chimneys, rusting appliances and farm implements. One needed a boat to explore most of them as there were no usable trails through the woods – at least none that were usable now.
But out behind the lighthouse there was a trail leading into the woods along the beach on the northwest side leading to a small creek that flowed into the ocean where the lightkeepers used to pump water to the station for drinking water. Part way along the trail were a couple of old buildings we were told housed the early settlers.
Having explored many ruins and old townsites on Vancouver Island before moving onto the lights we thought we were pretty expert at finding old souvenirs, bottles, etc.
Armed with shovel, trowel and a few sacks we headed out one day to explore the ruins. We knew we were probably not the first ones to explore the site, but hoped that our expertise would prevail and we would find what they had not.
First, we had been told many years earlier, look for a garbage dump. By now that would have been overgrown, so we looked for any hump that was off to the side of the property and away from the main house.
our find, like the bottle on the left
We did find and excavate a couple of likely spots, but found nothing that resembled what we were looking for. We searched through both buildings – one a house, and the other outbuilding, probably a sauna – hey, it was a Finnish homestead, so why not?
After hours of searching we found one small Vaseline bottle which had turned purple in the sun. Heading home proudly with our find, we showed it off to the other family at the lighthouse.
We completely forgot about the episode until about a year later when a boat with strangers arrived at the station. The two men and two women explained that they had been exploring the old Finnish homesteads for souvenirs and asked if it would be okay to look around out back as they had been told there was a homestead there as well.
Walter Tansky, the senior keeper, said there was no problem as all the property behind the lighthouse was Crown Land. I was wondering how long they would be there before they discovered that there was nothing significant there.
After a couple of hours they had not returned. I got curious and wandered back there to see what was taking so much of their time. Upon arriving at the site I saw that the floorboards had been torn up, and there was a pile of old bottles sitting off to one side.
How? Where? What . . .? I was speechless. Where did all these bottles come from?
So after getting over my shock, I asked some questions. It turns out they had found what they thought was the kitchen by probing. Probing involves the use of a spring steel probe about 1/4″ in diameter and about 4 feet long. It usually has a metal or wood T-handle. This is pushed into the earth to locate buried objects like metal and glass.
Under the floor in the kitchen they found most of the bottles. They assumed that a wood shelf had collapsed onto the rotten floor and carried its load of bottle with it. Some were broken, but most were in very good condition because they had not been moved since the early 1900s.
So this was not beachcombing, and I could not call it landcombing, but we sure did learn a lot about bottle scavenging.
The following extracts taken from early Victoria, British Columbia (BC) newspapers are credited to Leona Taylor for her excellent work in indexing the papers. Full information can be found here: ”Index of Historical Victoria Newspapers“, 2007-09.
