| Childhood Memories
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1. Cabin on Langara Island2. Reading material3. I remember c. 19274. My father was so proud of me c. 19185. I remember c. early 1960s |
 Lord Bight Cabin |
1. Cabin on Langara Island 
My family and the assistants at the time built a log cabin on the shores above a rock beach called Lord Bight . In those days, it was about an hour and a half’s hike to the beach, and we used the cabin as a weekend get-a-way. Sometimes I went alone, others I took my younger brothers.
Just building the cabin was a huge adventure, as the windows, stove, shiplap, shingles and nails had to be transported by a 16 foot open boat to the beach. With the old Briggs and Stratton engine in our boat, it took a couple of hours to get the supplies there, and entailed two or three trips. We could only do one trip a day, and we had to time the trips for very calm weather as the trip was on the exposed west side of the island, with many rocks offshore. One day we were bringing the shiplap. We had loaded our boat to the gunnels with the material, intending to tow the boat there with the station’s own 16 foot boat. My job was to run under the boat as it passed overhead on the skyhook, grabbing the bow line. My dad then lowered the boat into the water by winch, and I would pull the boat to shore, waiting for him to shut the winch down and come down, jump on board, and release the hook. For some reason I was distracted on my way down, and was not in the designated position as the boat traveled over the rocks. It was good for me, because I heard a horrendous crash. The lines holding the boat had snapped with the weight of the boat and planks, and the boat had dropped onto the rocks where I would have been standing. Our trip was delayed for some time, as dad had to repair all the damaged planks, and re-fiberglass the boat. We finally did get the material to the beach, but dad and I were swamped by waves as we came ashore, and spent half a day picking up planks from the rocks! Finally the cabin was built. It was a cozy little home nestled in amongst the rain forest trees with two front windows overlooking the beach. Made of upright beach logs, it had two corner windows looking into the forest, a wood stove, a dirt floor, and wooden bunks along three walls. The roof was shiplap and wooden shingles. We used grass from the meadows for a mattress on the bunks, and drift wood for the stove. There was a kerosene lamp for light, and we would take a transistor radio for entertainment. - Jeannie (Hartt) Nielsen (daughter of Ed Hartt, Senior Keeper on Langara 1957 - 1963) |
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2. Reading Material c. 1927 We used to get boxes of library discards from the Victoria Library. I was an avid reader and these boxes of books were just marvellous: I still recall the huge, fat, "Boys Own Annuals" which were evidently in demand in "British" Victoria; they were exciting reading with short stories and articles suitable for youngsters. It was years later when I figured out, all the mentions of TT were about "Tourist Trophy" motorcycle races and "BOA" was the weekly or monthly paper. You see, fifty-two of these made up the"Boys Own Annual". - Ted Smithman (Son of Henry Herbert Smithman who was Senior Keeper at Sisters Island 1927 - 1929) |
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3. I Remember c. 1927 I remember . . .
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 Sisters Island c. 1927 |
4. My Father Was so Proud of Me c. 1918 Can remember one time my father was so proud of me. Cannot remember what year but my brother must have been working. At least he was not at home and my parents had gone to town and I was left to hold the 'fort' [First Narrows Lighthouse (aka Capilano)] .
When any of us were coming home on the ferry the captains would give a little toot as they passed the Lighthouse and gave somebody time to row to the Point and pick which ever of us it was up and bring us home. This particular day I saw this dark cloud out towards Vancouver Island. I knew it was fog and kept a watch on it. Gradually it came closer and I knew the horn hard to be started soon. I had never starter' them without my father being there but this time I had to depend on myself and what I knew. Got one engine going and then there was this long belt to get onto the fly wheel. That done. Now to get the other belt back to the compressor. That done and then to run for a minute and then two or three tap affairs to open for the horn. The ferry tooted just as everything was ready to go and my father heard the horn as the ferry had passed. Unless the wind was blowing from the west one could not hear the horn east of the house. I didn't think much of what I had done because it was just part of my life being around the engines but my father was so proud of me that it was painful to me. - Dorothy Mawdsley (Harris) Harrop (daughter of first light keeper, George Alfred Harris, at Capilano 1913 - 1925) (with special thanks to Alfred Harrop, grandson of George Alfred Harris, for letting me post the text of the letter.) **********************************
If you wish to read more about life on First Narrows in her own words, please go to: Life on First Narrows |
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 Langara Point |
5. I Remember . . . c. early 1960s 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 stories]. 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 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.
It was a day of huge excitement. There was the novelty of seeing new faces as some of the crew of the Coast Guard ship came ashore to unload the slingloads of groceries, mail, oil barrels, and whatever other supplies had been ordered. Then came the carrying of 100 pound sacks of flour, sugar, and seemingly endless boxes of groceries for three families. The day was a kaleidoscope of wonderful smells: fresh food, mail from the mainland, new magazines and newspapers, and even new clothes from either the Sears or Eaton’s catalogues. I remember proudly sleeping with a new pair of tennis shoes under my pillow (till they got dirty!). I reveled in their newness and smell. Newspapers such as the Star Weekly, and Britain’s Daily Mirror, were stacked in date order, and read from cover to cover, and the pictures poured over. One of the things we would eagerly anticipate was receiving the traveling library box from Victoria. A wooden padlocked box. We could hardly wait for my parents to open it up so we could voraciously read every book in the box. There were adult’s books as well as children’s. Once we had read the children’s books we started on the grownup books. Adventures, novels, biographies, we read it all. The smell of new books is one that I never forgot. When we first lived on the lights, lightkeepers did not get holidays. When I was a young teenager Dad [Ed Hartt] got his first vacation. We were all so excited! By that time we had been two and a half years on Langara Island with no break. When we got the holidays it was two whole months of paid holidays as it was retroactive. Mom had family in Toronto [Ontario] and Brooks, Alberta so we were going to buy a car in Prince Rupert and camp our way to Toronto visiting relatives. That year and in years to follow, mom and I would bake up a storm, making tins and tins of cookies that we could all enjoy during our long hours on the road. During our vacation mom would take hours of 8 mm video, which we would watch over and over again during the long winter months back on the station, reliving our wonderful holidays till the next one came.
Sounds I loved the sound of the fog horn. You could hear it echoing in the fog and it felt like you were in a private alien world as the drifting fog shrouded the masts and trees of the station. The ocean could be heard in the distance, not visible through the grey mist. When I went into the "engine shack" I would listen to the roar of the Fairbanks Morse engines with their long black belts whipping round. The belts terrified me as once I had seen one break and shoot the length of the engine room. It sounded like the huge air tanks were taking a deep breath as they built up pressure for the next blast of the horn. Then there was the constant noise of the generators on top of that and it was impossible to make yourself heard in there. The howl of the wind in the rigging of the radio mast and around the tower were sounds of a fall or winter gale on the station. I so enjoyed to stand for as long as I could (before I got hypothermia!), watching the crashing rollers smashing against the rocks with spray blowing horizontally and foam piling up around the rocks. Then it was nice to go warm yourself in our cosy home next to the oil stove and have a cup of hot milk! When we were on the Coast Guard ship taking us to a holiday on the mainland or back home to the light, I loved all the sounds of the ship: the telegraph between the engine room and bridge signaling the captain’s orders to the crew; the sound of the bow anchor’s chain rumbling as she hauled anchor; the low rumble of the ship’s engines; the sound of the waves against the boat; the wind in the rigging. It was always exciting to be leaving on holidays but we were always happy to be heading home again too. The biggest challenge was on getting on or off of the ship,as you had to climb down a wood and rope ladder to the workboat over the gunnel [side] of the ship. It was especially unnerving when the waves were rolling the ship one way and the workboat was rising and falling 6 to 10 feet or more (2 to 3 meters) in the swell as you were ready for the final leap into the boat. The crew was always there to grab you though and make sure you made it safely. Sights The sight of the seagulls riding the air currents above the station was often a sign of an approaching storm. Then there were the numerous bald and golden eagles. Once we watched as two eagles locked talons high in the air and tumbled end over end toward the earth only to release and soar high once again. We would watch the spouts of migrating whales far on the horizon, and the killer whales close on shore hunting the sea lions, which were so plentiful in the early days. There were semi-tame deer who would come and graze on our lawns. I remember the golden sunsets and angry black clouds as yet another Pacific gale bore down on us; the stacked rollers off-shore with spray streaming off them in the gale. I am sure it would have been terrifying to any mariner caught in the maelstorm. - Jeannie (Hartt) Nielsen (daughter of Ed Hartt, Senior Keeper on Langara 1957 - 1963) |
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| John Coldwell (retired BC lighthouse keeper) Galvanistrasse 8 A-4040 Linz, Austria Tel: +43 (732) 750515 |