 Groceries being loaded at Coast Guard Base  On board the chopper  Unloading  Down to the House  The mail for one month  Oops! |
1. Forward by John Coldwell Some may wonder why the number of stories below about re-supplying the lighthouses exceeds the others on this site by a large margin. Next to the family and job, the arrival of the mail and groceries was the most important event in the life of the lightkeeping family. Imagine no telephone, no television, no two-way radio, possibly no AM radio, and no contact with the outside world except what you saw going by your window. The post was and still is the most important contact to the real world. Next think of no refridgerators, no freezers, and on some stations, no room for a garden, probably no hunting and fishing only if the weather is good and the tide not too strong. In the early days (1920s - 1950s) food sometimes had to last for six months or more and could arrive damaged. In the early days the ships did not have freezers as well, so your fresh side of beef could now be many weeks old and growing green as the ship could not deliver because of bad weather, malfunctions or search and rescue. Even in my years on the lights (1969 - 2001) when we had monthly delivery, supplies would not arrive because the store did not have the item in stock and never thought to substitute another, or they would get soaked in the rain, or seawater. The expected parcel from the post office would not arrive because it had been delayed in the post office or by the shipper and missed the ship or helicopter for that month. Imagine doing bank balancing with bank statements that were two months old and finding out also that the check you had mailed to the bank a month ago and were counting on for purchases had not made it there yet. No wonder we started shopping for Christmas in August! If one ordered a part for the washing machine that had broken (say on the February tender), it was sent out on one helicopter or ship and made its way through the post to the supplier, who either had/had not the part. Usually the reply (good or bad) did not make the next tender a month later (this would be March - see next paragraph), so you waited until the third tender (April) and hoped that the part fit. Our mail did not go immediately to the Post Office after leaving the lighthouse. Imagine your request leaves the lighthouse, using the above February example, on the 15th. The next supply trip is going to be March 15th. Meanwhile the ship has left your station heading for another. The normal supply trip around Vancouver Island could take over a week! If it was a re-fuelling run, then even longer. Once at the Coast Guard base it had to be unloaded, delivered to Stores Manager where it was sorted as to Post Office mail, personal mail, office mail, etc. Then it had to be delivered to the Post Office and from there into the system. This could now be at least February 22nd and usually later. (now only two weeks to get a reply back before the March 15th tender). If the supplier had/had not the part he had no way of contacting you except by the reverse route (Post, Coast Guard, ship, lighthouse) so there was the bind. One got used to it but if you were waiting for that special birthday gift, it sure could cause a lot of problems. With the advent of a radio telephone shared by all lighthouses, it became possible to shorten the time of arrival of necessary parts, amend grocery lists and generally join the real world. Well, almost! This telephone link was usually shared by as many as five to ten lighthouses for such things as lighthouse to Coast Guard weather pickups, special weather messages, messages to the office (remember up to 10 lighthouses), messages from the office (to one or all ten), Search and Rescue queries or help, medical emergencies or calls to the doctor, and, if there was time, sometimes a personal phone call to town or another lighthouse. Now remember, this was over a radiotelephone link that could be heard by anybody that had a scanner in town or on a boat, or anybody picking up the phone and listening and was subject to so many malfunctions (especially in winter) that it became a joke, but it was better than nothing and of course lighthouse keepers had plenty of time on their hands (old rumour!). So, please excuse me if I give precedence to the one factor in our lives that kept us sane - the post and the food delivery. - John Coldwell (Retired Keeper from Pulteney, Kains, Pachena, Green, and McInnes 1969 - 2001) |
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 Cloo-Stung |
2. Groceries at Green Island  c. 1975
The Cloo-Stung was a catamaran of the Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) used for delivery of personnel and supplies to Prince Rupert area lighthouses in protected waters.
The groceries were delivered to the Coast Guard base in Prince Rupert from the local stores. These were then packed in slings (large canvas or net circles with ropes attached to allow them to be attached to a hook) and loaded onto the Cloo-Stung.
One day while working at Green Island the Cloo-stung arrived with our monthly supplies of mail, groceries and miscellaneous supplies from Prince Rupert base. The weather was fine, the sea was fair and all was well as the highline hook ran down the line, tripped at the catch and slid slowly down the line to the boat. One of the crew grabbed the highline hook and with the other hand slipped the lines from the net sling over the hook. At the "haul away" sign from the crewman, I slipped in the clutch on the winch and started to lift the slingload of groceries from the open deck at the back of the boat. In one ear I heard the winch engine groan as if to stall, and with my eyes I saw the net sling catch on a projection on the Cloo-Stung. I released the brake and the net slowly sank back into the well deck. At the same time the Cloo-Stung was drifting into the beach because of the low ocean swell. Well, that started the sling moving again. It was anchored to the boat; it was anchored to my winch hook. Slowly the sling began to lift over the low side of the boat and before anyone could even yell, the full slingload of ten cardboard boxes of groceries tipped over the side of the boat and into the salt water. Now some of these boxes were filled with light stuff and floated and some were filled with tin cans, etc. and you guessed it - straight to the bottom. The bottom under the highline was not very deep (maybe 20 feet) but we were not divers so all was lost. The Coast Guard was very good about replacing our lost supplies another day (comparing received supplies against our copy of the grocery list) and the crew did manage to rescue some of the floating boxes, so we were not without for very long. But, come next day, the regular ocean current and tides started washing up some of these "lost items" onto the beach. One silver can here, another there! Of course the labels had washed off in the water and we had no idea of what we were retrieving. So, for the next week or so we made a regular patrol of the short beach trying to locate more cans. After opening one or two cans and identifying the contents, we finally found out what each of the markings on the cans was for and so we had our own identification. "Here, I'll trade you a can of beans for a can of corn." "I don't like mushrooms. You take this one. I'll get that can over there." For a week this provided an unusual diversion from the everyday routine of a lightstation and provided us with a few "free" groceries. After a week or so, the gift of cans disappeared and we had to find other entertainment. - John Coldwell (Principal Keeper on Green Island 1975 - 1977) |
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3. Groceries at Sisters Island c. 1927
Light keepers have to take a four-month supply of food when they go on as there's no way of getting anything otherwise. No stores to run to and no neighbours to borrow from, ha ha. The government boat called the lighthouse tender [probably the "C.C.G.S.Estevan" as she was built in 1912] calls around every 4 or 5 months. Light keepers order groceries from wholesalers in Victoria and it is delivered to the government wharf and loaded on the tender and they bring it when they are coming up that way. - Elizabeth Kate (Stannard) Smithman (Wife of Henry Herbert Smithman who was Senior Keeper at Sisters Island 1927 - 1929) **********************************
If you wish to read more about her life on the lighthouses in her own words, please go to: Life on a Lighthouse |
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4. Going for Groceries at Sisters Island c. 1928
Many a time Bert and Teddie, and sometimes Stanley, had started out for the mail, 6 miles (9.6 kilometres) over to the Post Office and Store, and before they could get started back it would come up awfully rough. I would watch for them and so often have thought a big wave had swallowed them up, then I would see them again, and I would feel so relieved. Then another big wave would come and my hopes were dampened again. At last, nearly dark, I would hear Bert calling and there they were waiting for the boat carrier to be let down so they could get the boat up to safety, for it would never do to leave it in the water as it would get battered to bits. It was a big huge row boat and two people were needed to row it, or should I say work it or handle it. Then they would unload the boat and if they had to get groceries, for sometimes a person runs out of things of their four months supply which they are supposed to have on hand. Sometimes if they had got flour or sugar it would be soaked with the waves going over the boat, but a person thinks nothing of that so long as they get home safely. Believe me, a person doesn't go over for mail anymore often than they can help. When it gets to be a month or 6 weeks and no mail, well a person takes a chance and goes over for it. That is one thing disgusting about the Government. Why should a lightkeeper have to go and fetch his mail and take his life in his hands that way? I never understood why a lightkeeper is the lowest paid Government employee. He should be the highest. No fooling! For the risk he has to take and all the responsibility he has! The lightkeepers never got holidays at that time. In the later years the light keepers all amalgamated and demanded holidays with pay and they got it. The government would keep a man employed as a relief man to light keepers and he would go to first one lighthouse and then another until they had all had their two (2) week holidays. - Elizabeth Kate (Stannard) Smithman (Wife of Henry Herbert Smithman who was Senior Keeper at Sisters Island 1927 - 1929) **********************************
If you wish to read more about her life on the lighthouses in her own words, please go to: Life on a Lighthouse |
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5. Posting Mail at Sisters Island c. 1928
Talking of getting mail reminds me how we used to get fishermen to mail letters for us during fishing season. Bert would tie the letters in a big bundle and put a big rock on with them. He had to throw them on to the fish boat as he couldn't get near because of the swell they were making. They were big fish boats going back and forth from Seattle up to Alaska. We never put stamps on the letters in case they were mailed in U.S.A. so we put monev in with the letters. Sometimes we would catch a boat that was going maybe to Victoria.
We never knew just where some of them were going but we did know they would always mail them for everybody was glad to do anything for a lightkeeper. One time I had a couple of letters I did so want to get them to Qualicum Beach as soon as I could for I had had them waiting ready for so long. Bert went out to a boat which looked like a Canadian fisherman and threw the letters onboard. When he came in he said "Well, your letters will soon be there now for their first stop is San Francisco". (Qualicum Beach was about 8 miles (12.8 kilometres) from us. Ha Ha).
- Elizabeth Kate (Stannard) Smithman (Wife of Henry Herbert Smithman who was Senior Keeper at Sisters Island 1927 - 1929) **********************************
If you wish to read more about her life on the lighthouses in her own words, please go to: Life on a Lighthouse |
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6. Marooned 1928 Bert got marooned over on the mainland once when he went for mail. We were on Ballenas Island then and Bert left in good weather to go and get mail and a few supplies as were getting low on eats. We used to get mail at Craig's Crossing but had to go to Parksville for supplies as it was just a Post Office at Craig's.
Anyway, Bert got his mail and supplies OK but when he got started out in open water it got pretty rough so he had to turn back and go to a cove for shelter. It started to snow and freeze and he had eggs, flour, sugar etc. in the row boat. He had to dig down into the sand deep enough to bury all his supplies to keep them from freezing and he got into an old shed or cabin at the cove for shelter. Next day he thought it was calmed down enough to try it again so he dug up his supplies and loaded them up again and started out, but he had to turn back and do the same thing all over again. He did this three or four times and had to keep turning back and taking shelter. After the first time he went and borrowed some blankets for himself from the Post Office people as he was afraid he might get frozen to death as it was so bitterly cold. Each time he made up his mind to start out he would take the blankets back and then would have to go and borrow them again. Well this went on for over a week, then one day I was looking though the binoculars and I saw a tiny dot on the water miles and miles away and I said "I think Daddy is on his way home for it is in the direction he generally comes." You see, we did not know whether he was drowned, or what had happened to him all this time. Talk about being worried (that's no name for it believe me). We had an assistant light keeper with us at this time thank goodness, for I don't know how we would have made out for it was snowing a blizzard and the fog alarm had to be kept going all the time as well as the light. Anyway, after a few hours we saw Bert coming over the island from the boat house, it was about one-half mile to the boat house from the lighthouse at Ballenas. Of course I had kept looking at short intervals through the glasses to try and make sure if it was Bert and I wasn't really sure whether it was him or someone coming to tell us something had happened to him. You can guess how happy we all were when we saw it was "Our Daddy" back safe and he was just as happy that he was home after all he had been through. He had a beard and moustache and he sure looked old and different. - Elizabeth Kate (Stannard) Smithman (Wife of Henry Herbert Smithman who was Senior Keeper at Sisters Island 1927 - 1929) **********************************
If you wish to read more about her life on the lighthouses in her own words, please go to: Life on a Lighthouse |
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7. Fish for Dinner Dad (Albert Bartle), when he was on Sandheads (no women allowed), which has no room to do anything except walk around the boardwalk around the lighthouse, would put down a bucket on a rope and passing fish boats would fill the bucket with salmon, cod, crabs, shrimp, etc. He always said that it was much easier than going fishing.
- Jean (Bartle) Konkle (Daughter of Albert Bartle, Relief Keeper at Sandheads c. 1970s) |
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 CCGS Sir James Douglas  Workboat Accident at Ivory Island |
8. Supplies for Cape Scott
In 1975 we (myself, Karen and our two young children, our dog, cats, and all our furnishings) were on our way clockwise around Vancouver Island from Quatsino lighthouse to Pachena Point on the "CCGS Sir James Douglas". This was a grocery run so the trip was already pre-planned and we were just passengers.
The seas were not high but as we rounded Cape Scott, the northern-most tip of Vancouver Island, we began to roll in the southwest swell. As we motored around into quieter waters on the inside of Vancouver Island, we were still being tossed around by occasional large ocean swells. I had requested and received permission from the skipper to go ashore to visit the lightkeepers while the workboat made its numerous trips back and forth. This was a grocery run - monthly tender of groceries and supplies from Victoria before the days of large helicopters. The skipper, Tom Hull, ordered the workboat into the water and to commence loading supplies for the lighthouse keepers at Cape Scott. The on-ship derrick lifted bonnet sling loads of material from the hold, over the edge of the ship and dropped it expertly into the rolling work boat tied up alonside the lee side of the ship. Meanwhile, the swell tossed the tender and the workboat back and forth just to make the loading more difficult. The slings were covered with another bonnet to keep the contents dry from the salt spray.
The workboats were double-ended fibreglass-over-wood clinker-built designs not much bigger than a standard lifeboat. They were seaworthy but rocked and rolled all the time. They were driven by an internal diesel engine with a through-hull shaft and external caged propeller. The turning was controlled by an outboard tiller. When the first loading was finished , I climbed down the shipside rope/wood ladder and jumped into the clear space aft where the mate was controlling the motions of the boat. The crew threw off the lines and we headed for Vancouver Island, still rolling and tossing in the swells. At times the "Douglas" disappeared from view as we wallowed closer to shore and the narrow cut which was the entrance to the landing at Cape Scott. Inside the cut the water was white and green and tossing up onto the rocky shore. High above I could see the winch shed and the lightkeepers waiting and watching as the workboat nosed into the shore. By this time I had moved into the bow of the boat and as the swell rolled us towards the rock I was told to "Jump!" Luckily it was near high tide so the rocks were not too slimy with seaweed. I made it ashore and climbed the peaty path to the top. The view into the gorge was spectacular. It was dark but lit by a clear sky and the whiteness of the white foam from the moving green sea. I greeted the keepers and admired the fact they had a truck to haul their groceries and supplies back to the lighthouse. Some stations only had a wheelbarrow! The workboat had finished unloading as I made it slowly to the top and had returned to the ship for another load. The radio blared that the workboat was on its way in again and the keeper got ready on the winch. One could not see the workboat until it entered the cut and by then it was rolling even more than usual. As it came in it tried to make the right hand turn to align itself with the hook (of the highline) but at the same time a large swell doubled up on itself and lifted boat and crew and deposited them on the rock at the right entrance to the cut. As the swell receded, the boat was left high and dry and proceeded to roll over on its side and spill all the groceries and supplies into the sea. The crew were hanging onto the gunwales as the next swell came in, righted them, and swept them off the rock back into the main water, the caged propeller still turning. Control was established. The pumps were working as they called me back to the workboat and we headed soggily back to the "Douglas". Captain Hull gave as much as he could from the ship's stores to help replace some of the missing groceries and the workboat made one last trip in to resupply the keepers. This was to last the keepers for the next month while the ship could be re-supplied in a few days in Victoria. We moved out of the rough waters as soon as the workboat was back on board. The high tide and the swell really made it uncomfortable at this anchorage. An overnighter in Port Hardy dried everything out. - John Coldwell (Assistant Keeper Quatsino/Pachena 1975) **********************************
To see what life was really like in the workboats, check out Reg Gunn's article Life in the Canadian Coastguard Reg was first mate on "CCGS Sir James Douglas" in the days before helicopters. |
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CCGS Sir James Douglas  Ocean Sea foam  Station boat being lowered into the gap.  Landing from seaward c. 1975 |
9. Groceries at Kains Island (Quatsino) c. 1975
The landing under the hook (aka highline) at Kains Island was a large basin at the back side. It looked like a very large boulder had been washed out from the hole. It was a bit tricky if the swell was running to bring the station inflatable in safely but we never had a accident in my three years on station. After a SE winter storm the hole would fill up with kelp stems broken off the surrounding reefs by the large swells. The swells then pounded this kelp into a tan-coloured foam which drifted all over the ocean and blew up into the trees and hung there like lichen. It was quite light but sticky to the touch. One winter day we were expecting the supply ship with groceries, mail, etc. One of the Coast Guard buoy tenders arrived rocking and rolling in the swells in Quatsino Sound. Over the side went the workboat and then began the process of off-loading the supplies into her. We could see the orange-suited crew members on deck and in the boat but could not recognize anyone. As we watched the workboat pull away from the shelter of the ship we were called on the radio by an unknown voice that the boat was on its way in. We acknowledged and commented that this appeared to be a new mate. Always fun to see how much experience they had unloading under a highline. The boat rolled across the half kilometere distance between us and the ship, sometimes disappearing completely in the swells. The mate brought the boat closer to shore and lined up with the small bay, all the while ploughing a path through the foam which was pushed aside by the bow. As the boat neared the gap the mate rode a swell in under the hook and all but completely disappeared! We could see well from the winch shed and the highline deck but only heads were showing in the workboat - the rest had completely disappeared! During the night the storms had lashed the kelp to pulp and filled the gap with sea foam to almost a metre deep! The workboat rode in on the swell and right under the foam. Pushing the foam aside, the crew grabbed the lowered hook, slipped on a set of slings and signalled "Haul Away". As the bonnet sling left the well of the workboat it also left a nice clean spot in the boat. On landing on the highline deck above, it was discovered that everything was covered with the sea foam, but, all was OK on the inside of the cartons of groceries and bags of mail although a bit sticky on the outside. The foam, although appearing quite dense, was actually quite dry and no harm was done. The mate was a little more cautious when he came in with the second load. - John Coldwell (Assistant Keeper Quatsino 1975) |
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| John Coldwell (retired BC lighthouse keeper) Galvanistrasse 8 A-4040 Linz, Austria Tel: +43 (732) 750515  |