Tag Archives: Pt. Atkinson

Mise Tales Twenty-Six

Adult Memories, Anti-Automation, Art, Beachcombing, Books, Books, Books, British Columbia, Canada, Construction, Environment, First Nations, Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act, History, Information, Keepers, Lighthouses, Recreation, Souvenirs, Tourism, Travel, Wildlife, , , , , , ,

 

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August 26, 2013 Vancouver Sun

Keeping the light on at Point Atkinson

Pt.Atkinson

 When the Point Atkinson lighthouse was built 130 years ago, it was designed to protect shippers in the Strait of Georgia. Now the lighthouse itself is in need of a benefactor. . . . more

 

 

[private] Keeping the light on at Point Atkinson

 

 VANCOUVER SUN AUGUST 26, 2013
  
Keeping the light on at Point Atkinson
 

The Point Atkinson Lighthouse at Lighthouse Park in West Vancouver stands guard at the mouth of Burrard Inlet May 11, 2004.

Photograph by: RIC ERNST , PNG

When the Point Atkinson lighthouse was built 130 years ago, it was designed to protect shippers in the Strait of Georgia. Now the lighthouse itself is in need of a benefactor.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the District of West Vancouver are discussing ways to put the lighthouse into the hands of the community after Point Atkinson — along with 18 other B.C. lighthouses — was deemed “surplus” to the federal government’s needs three years ago and offered up for sale or transfer.

“In reflection, (the federal government) realized some of the national historic sites aren’t going to go to the highest bidder,” said Brent Leigh, deputy chief administrative officer at the District of West Vancouver, which has a co-management agreement with the government to maintain the lighthouse.

“They expect to work with the district in a community-based program that would ensure that we retain community use … Point Atkinson is one of our most beloved community assets.”

Originally built on a rocky cliff in 1875, the lighthouse has been more than just a beacon of hope for shippers over the centuries. It has also recorded a series of historical firsts as time went on, as chronicled in the book Keepers of the Light, written by one of the last lightkeepers, Donald Graham:

1774: Captain Vancouver rows past the point and names it for a ”particular friend.”

1872: The Marine Department awards contract to Arthur Finney to build the lighthouse.

1875: New lighthouse exhibits fixed white light illuminated by two coal oil lamps and silver-plated copper reflectors.

1875: Edwin Woodward and his wife land at the station.

1876: James Atkinson Woodward, the first white child born in West Vancouver, is born there.

1881: 185-acre park created as a Lighthouse Reserve.

1889: Scotch siren fog signal, powered by a coal-generated steam plant installed to help shippers navigate the fog.

1912: Original tower replaced by 60-foot-high concrete tower. Light replaced by a vaporized oil lamp.

1960: Vaporized oil lamp replaced by electric light bulb.

1994: Lighthouse designated a National Historic Site.

1996: Point Atkinson refitted with an automated solar-powered light.

Donald Graham and Gerry Watson were the last lightkeepers. Graham’s wife Elaine still lives in the cottage at Lighthouse Park.

With files from Canadian Lightkeepers Association website

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun [/private]
 
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Reprint – A Light on the Past

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A light on the past

with permission from Rosalind Duane, North Shore News, August 05, 2012

Elaine Graham remains the only resident among the historical buildings at Point Atkinson Lighthouse. Photograph by: NEWS photo, Lisa King

ELAINE Graham was raised in the slums of London, far from the multi-hued green of nature.

“There was nothing on my street when I was growing up,” she recalls. “I had lots of play-friends, loads of kids to play with, but there wasn’t even a geranium on a windowsill.”

Many years later, Graham is now surrounded by 75 hectares of the largest first-growth stand of coastal-elevation trees in the Lower Mainland. Her home is nestled among the remaining structures at the base of Point Atkinson Lighthouse, which stands on a craggy promontory at the edge of Lighthouse Park in West Vancouver.

She has spent half her life here, and is eager to tell the story of her neck of the woods.

Graham moved to the Point Atkinson Lighthouse station with her husband Donald and two young sons in 1980. Donald became the last of the lighthouse keepers at the site (along with senior keeper Gerry Watson) when the lighthouse was automated in 1996.

The Grahams stayed on in one of the two keeper’s houses, she as a park attendant and he as a groundskeeper. Continue reading Reprint – A Light on the Past →

In Memorium – Donald Graham (1947 – 2003)

Lighthouses, , , , , , ,

Donald Graham (1947 – October 10, 2003) was a Cultural Conservation Coordinator for the Province of Saskatchewan prior to becoming a British Columbia lightkeeper in 1976. He worked at Bonilla Island in Hecate Strait, at Lucy Island near the mainland and east of the northern Queen Charlottes and finally at Lighthouse Park in West Vancouver. With an M.A. in history and adept at political science, he spearheaded the partially successful campaign to curtail replacement of manned lighthouses with strictly automated signals. His two books, Keepers of the Light and Lights of the Inside Passage, reveal that many of B.C.’s lightkeepers were under-paid working class heroes. The first title won the second Roderick Haig-Brown B.C. Book Prize in 1986. Graham continued to live at the Lighthouse Park light station after it was officially ‘de-manned’. Graham was also noteworthy for claiming on CTV national news that the Allies had deliberately shelled the Estavan Point Lighthouse on the West Coast of Vancouver Island in 1942 to whip up war fever. This attack, blamed at the time on a Japanese submarine, led to the expulsion of Japanese Canadians from the West Coast. Don Graham died of cancer in October, 2003. – ABC Book World

To include your memories in Don’s memorial please click this link.

Books published by Don Graham relating to lighthouses include

Keepers of the Light: A History of British Columbia’s Lighthouses and Their Keepers. Harbour Pub. Co., 1985. 
Lights of the Inside Passage: A History of British Columbia’s Lighthouses and Their Keepers. Harbour Pub. Co., 1986.