Lennard Island  - Staffed
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Latitude 49 06 37.5N, Longitude 125 55 24.7W List of Lights #134
Established: November 1st, 1904 Automated: That's up to John Q. Public! Keep the lights manned!
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Clicking on a photo takes you to a larger version of the photo.
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The light was first manned on November 1st, 1904 and has been knocked about by the Pacific Ocean for one hundred and three years. The photo below shows what the builders faced.
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Waters around Lennard Island
Tony Holland photo from Ken Gibson Collection
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So they built a lighthouse with a leaky roof (according to Don Graham's book "Keepers of the Light").
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Lennard lighthouse plans c. 1904
Photo from Dept. of Fisheries and Oceans
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Construction going
according to plan c. 1904
Rev. Stone photo
from Ken Gibson Collection
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"Clearing Lennard was a tough job. The spruce was short and carrot-shaped. It was full of large pitch seams that just jammed the cross-cut saws. Anton Hanson told me they drilled a 1-1/4" hole through the stump and burned them off with a blow torch. If you look at Lennard now you can barely see the light go past from Chesterman Beach." - Ken Gibson
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Lennard Island - trees all cleared 1904
George Jackson photo
from Ken Gibson Collection
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Lennard Island
1911 - 1913
W. Drader photo
from Ken Gibson Collection.
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Lennard Island
1911 - 1913
W. Drader photo
from Ken Gibson Collection.
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Lennard Island
1912 - 1920
Mike Hamilton photo
from Ken Gibson Collection.
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In the above photos, note the brick building with a chimney coming out of it. This housed the coal-fired steam boiler to operate the foghorn.
"Tony Holland said that tons of coal had to be brought ashore on the island, as the summer fog is always there, and the boiler had to go for long hours at times. Men packing it ashore on their backs was also very dangerous also. This home-made hand-operated crane and boom arrangement (see photo below) made life easier by swinging the coal sacks to a waiting cart or wheel-barrow." - Ken Gibson
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Lennard Island coal lift
Walter Dawley photo
from Ken Gibson Collection.
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Bill and Ann Stout
Lightkeepers
October 1948 - October 1951
Photo from Ken Gibson Collection.
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Lennard from the water c. 1950s
George Nichcolson photo
from Ken Gibson Collection.
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The photos below do not show the steam foghorn mentioned above, but a later Diaphone horn which used low pressure (35 psi) compressed air. The second photo below, right, shows the next "improvement", the Diaphone electronic horn. Not bad, but nothing equaled the deep resonant two-toned sound of the Diaphone!
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Diaphone horn
(inner workings)
Photo from Chris Mills
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Airchimes (5) center
Diaphone (1) right
Photo from Chris Mills
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By the late 1960s the tower was getting pretty rotten in spots and was demolished in 1968 and replaced with a free-standing fibreglass tube with a new lantern on top.
Unfortunately the strong winds of the west coast were not engineered into the building. This new tower shook terribly in stormy weather.
It was replaced in 1987 with a much stronger cement tower, made from white stone and sand which never needs painting, and which stands proudly today. (Unfortunately, the foghorns no longer operate with it!)
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New fibreglass tower
on trailer
at Tofino airport
Photo from Ken Gibson Collection.
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Lifting tower
Photo from Ken Gibson Collection.
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The new cement tower
under construction
Tony Holland photo
from Ken Gibson Collection.
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Removing
fibreglass tower
December 17, 1987
Tony Holland photo
from Ken Gibson Collection.
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The new tower as it stands today.
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Lennard Island today
Photo from Glenn Borgens
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Long Beach is close to Lennard Island and many photographers take this opportunity to snap a great photo of the BC coast with the lighthouse included.
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The duties of the lightkeepers on Lennard are now reduced to minor maintenance and painting and the all-important
weather reports.
The foghorns are silent.
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| Keepers |
| Francis C. Garrard | PLK (1904-1908) | |
| Robert Pollock | PLK (1908-1922) | |
| George Grandon | PLK (1922-1922) | relief keeper |
| Clarence Edward Carver | RO (1923-c. 1925) | radio operator |
| Donald Bernard McPhee | PLK (1922-1929) | |
| Sidney Walter Blackmore | PLK (1929-1930) | relief keeper |
| Thomas A. McNab | PLK (1930-1944) | |
| Roy Casson | ALK (1936-1936) | relief keeper |
| Hjalmer Hansen | PLK (1944-1944) | relief keeper |
| William Holmes | PLK (1944-1945) | relief keeper |
| Arthur Ernest Kelly | PLK (1945-1947) | |
| W. E. Freeman | PLK (1947-1948) | relief keeper |
| William Stout | PLK (1948-1951) | |
| Douglas Howard Franklin | PLK (1951-1957) | |
| William Stout | PLK (1957-1960) | |
| Jack Reddy | PLK (1960-1961) | |
| Trevor Anderson | ALK (1961-1963) | |
| D. Loudon | PLK (1961-1963) | |
| Chris W. Slater | PLK (1963-1963) | relief keeper |
| J. Alan Tully | PLK (1963-1964) | |
| Ian G. McNeil | ALK (1965-1966) | |
| Jim W. Bruton | PLK (1964-1968) | |
| Arthur Britton | PLK (1968-1970) | |
| Norman Angell, Jr. | ALK (1970-1970) | relief keeper |
| Robert Nagel | ALK (1970-1972) | |
| H. Ivan Olsen | PLK (1970-1974) | |
| Bob Young | ALK (1974-1975) | |
| Maurice D'eon | ALK (1975-1976) | |
| Gary Anderson | ALK (1976-1977) | |
| Herb Williamson | ALK (1977-1978) | |
| Laurent Dube | ALK (1978-1979) | |
| John Attewell | ALK (1980-1981) | |
| Matt Martinelli | ALK (1981-1983) | |
| Harry McKee | ALK (1983-1984) | |
| Gary Hardy | ALK (1984-1984) | |
| Chas Thompson | ALK (1985-1986) | |
| Ed Eklund | ALK (1986-1987) | |
| Phil Spence | ALK (1987-1988) | |
| Ike Pronk | ALK (1988-1989) | |
| Gerry Warmenhoven | PLK (1989-1998) | |
| Tony Holland | PLK (1974-1996) | |
| Ray Smith | PLK (1997-1998) | relief keeper |
Iain Colquhoun | PLK (1998-2007) | |
| Kathy Doyle | ALK (1999-2007) | |
| Curtis Hamilton | ALK (2004-2004) | relief keeper |
Find lighthouse keepers from other stations here.
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