Today S is for Sea - and Lighthouses
Blogging about British Columbia Genealogy Resources
Patchena [Pachena] Bay postcard; J. Howard A. Chapman, publisher, Victoria, B.C.; #1655. Image MSC130-09279_01, courtesy of the Philip Francis Postcard Collection, a digital initiative of Simon Fraser University Library.
Today I'm focusing on lighthouses in coastal British Columbia. Ships brought people here especially when British Columbia was one or more British colonies, ships transport BC produce, manufactures and raw natural resources overseas, ships take many of us up coast either on holiday or for work or to visit family. The sea provides a living still to many on the coast in fishing or other maritime pursuits. Lighthouses have been essential for safety.
Lighthouses today protect those who travel and work on the BC coast. People, even with families, worked as lighthouse keepers, and still do, most in remote locations, like Cape Beale, where Karen Zacharuk works, as described in "Keeping Watch" by Megan Thomas, CBC News, 2019. Historically in Canada, a number of keepers were women; Library and Archives Canada featured some documents regarding them in a recent blog post, Women Lightkeepers, Heroes by the sea - a Co-lab Challenge.
Lighthouses today protect those who travel and work on the BC coast. People, even with families, worked as lighthouse keepers, and still do, most in remote locations, like Cape Beale, where Karen Zacharuk works, as described in "Keeping Watch" by Megan Thomas, CBC News, 2019. Historically in Canada, a number of keepers were women; Library and Archives Canada featured some documents regarding them in a recent blog post, Women Lightkeepers, Heroes by the sea - a Co-lab Challenge.
When I first thought about this topic, I planned to dive into archival and book sources but since archives, museums and libraries are closed right now, I've chosen from the virtual museum and website resources available to us at home. I expect I'll be able to add to this later, and indeed, to cover more about ships, and about the lakes and rivers that are so important to the rest of BC! One lighthouse though, Pilot Bay, is on Kootenay Lake in BC's interior.
For an interactive map of BC lighthouses, go to Kraig Anderson's LighthouseFriends.com
For an interactive map of BC lighthouses, go to Kraig Anderson's LighthouseFriends.com
If you are not familiar with BC's coast at all, you might like to read The Curve of Time by M. Wylie Blanchet, now a Canadian classic, the story of her and her children's many summers spent cruising the southern coast and Vancouver Island. For the historians and genealogists, here is more about her and her family, "Meet M. Wylie Blanchet and Muriel W. Liffiton" by Thomas Liffiton: http://www.dbsparks.com/MurielLiffiton.pdf Curve of Time was first published in 1968, and several times since.
For those of you who are 'boaters', you might like to dream of trips to come 'someday' at Ahoy British Columbia and for anyone, glimpses of British Columbia's Marine Parks.
Our very first stop to get an idea of the distances and conditions on the coast here is Lighthouses of Canada - there is a section for Southern British Columbia and for Northern British Columbia. In British Columbia, there are 27 staffed lighthouses (51 in Canada) and overall in Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada estimates now 500 surplus lighthouses.
Fisgard Lighthouse near Victoria is the earliest lighthouse in British Columbia, 1860, automated since 1929, designated as a National Historic Site, and in future times, this is one of the historic lighthouses you can visit. There are 21 in BC designated as heritage lighthouses.
According to British Columbia Magazine, 2017, these are the five lighthouses to see - Green Island Lighthouse, the most northern, above Prince Rupert; Pachena Point Lighthouse in Pacific Rim National Park on Vancouver Island; Point Atkinson Lighthouse on Burrard Inlet; Triple Island Lighthouse near Prince Rupert (if you've been on an Alaska cruise, you may already have seen it), and Fisgard Lighthouse, mentioned above.
Next, the Maritime Museum of British Columbia in Victoria, BC, our province's capital. Here is a virtual photo exhibition, "Life at Pine Island Light Station: 1957 to 1967" when the Brown family lived there on northern Vancouver Island. There is more to see at the Museum, including already submissions for a new collection, "COVID-19: How B.C. Maritime Communities are Responding to the Pandemic". The Museum's research centre and library do hold materials on lighthouses. A few of the images in the collection are viewable online.
"Nanaimo; Group In Front Of The Lighthouse." British Columbia Archives, Item B-02494. Photographer unknown; [187-]. There is a caption on the photo but I will have to wait till the Archives is open again to read it. The BC Archives has a number of photographs (some digitized) of lighthouses and other resources, including oral histories, films and microfilm copies of correspondence registers for certain years (from Library and Archives Canada).
At Lighthouse Memories, written mostly by John Coldwell and now managed by the Sheringham Point Lighthouse Preservation Society (SPLPS), there are stories, for example, about Minnie Patterson and the “Coloma” off Cape Beale in 1906, photographs and art, and a database of British Columbia lighthouse keepers, 1129 British Columbia lighthouse keeper names on 96 different lighthouses, for a total of 1922. Also the names of some people known to be keepers of 'lights' (unstaffed).
More information on all these people is sought, as are photographs, etc. John Coldwell has collected genealogical information, and started to add Memorial Pages. There are some queries, for instance, there is a photo of Thomas Geoffrey Williams, at Triple Island Lighthouse in 1944, but who is the second man shown? (Some links do not work, but I found the missing information using the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.)
More Suggestions for Researching BC Lighthouses and Lighthouse Keepers right now
Besides the websites mentioned above, I recommend you search -
First, the British Columbia Historical Federation's digital periodicals available through the UBC Open Collections. There are many articles and many more references to these topics in those articles. https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/bch
And the UBC Open Collections of Historical Books and the Historical Newspapers. I just noticed there that in 1921 the BC Division of the Canadian Red Cross intended to establish a nursing service for British Columbia coastal lighthouses. This apparently followed from the BC Division's survey of lighthouses in 1920. Okanagan Commoner, 30 June, 1921, pages 2/3. Now where can I find that survey...
BC Lighthouse Books to look for later
Keepers of the Light (1990) and Lights of the Inside Passage: A History of British Columbia's Lighthouses and their Keepers (1986) by Donald Graham.Guiding Lights: BC's Lighthouses and Their Keepers by Chris Jaksa & Lynn Tanod, photos by Chris Jaksa (1998).
The Lighthouse Cookbook by Anita Stewart (1988). I had to add this one! Includes some stories.
"Bicyclists take a break near the Brockton Point lighthouse and fog bell", Stanley Park, Vancouver, BC. Photographer unknown; [189-?]. City of Vancouver Archives, Major Matthews collection, Item: St Pk P275.
3 comments:
A great compilation of resources about BC lighthouses. I must check out "The Curve of Time." Thanks for your Blogiversary visit and comment -- I am still toying with the idea of a book/fictional treatment on my Blakeslee ancestors' saga. Appreciate your encouragement!
I love lighthouses. We have visited a few, and even lived next door to a fascinating couple who recently retired after many years keeping the light.
Some issues of Sessional Papers of Canada list lighthouse keepers by name and by province. I wrote about them a few years back.
Lighthouse Keepers
Yes, Lighthouse Memories used those Sessional reports. It's a shame the lists weren't complete. And there is correspondence and other records, but almost all 'locked up' right now.
Post a Comment