Adventures of a Lightkeeper

Contents

Title page

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction

1 Bacalhao Island and the Beginning

2 Surgeon’s Cove Head Lighthouse, 1983

3 Long Point Lighthouse, 1984

Life on Long Point

Lightkeeper Jack Roberts

Long Point Lighthouse, Continued

4 Life at Bacalhao Island Lighthouse, 1988

Bacalhao Island, Highlights

Gord’s Search and Rescue Mission

Wildlife on Bacalhao Island

5 Surgeon’s Cove Head Lighthouse, 1992

Richard Wells, Exploits Island

Surgeon’s Cove Head, Final Years

6 My Lighthouse Beagle and Other Stories

Radio Communications

Automation

Ghost Stories

Off-Duty Rescues

Days-Off Adventures

Canadian Coast Guard Helicopters, Techs, and Ships

7 Puffin Island Lighthouse, 2003

8 Long Point Lighthouse 2003–2006

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Adventures of a Lightkeeper

Barry Porter

Flanker Press Limited

St. John’s

Copyright

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Adventures of a lightkeeper / Barry Porter.

Names: Porter, Barry (Barry M.), author.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20220193622 | Canadiana (ebook) 20220193649 | ISBN 9781774570869 (softcover) | ISBN 9781774570876 (EPUB) | ISBN 9781774570883 (PDF) | ISBN 9781774570869

Subjects: LCSH: Porter, Barry (Barry M.) | LCSH: Lighthouse keepers—Newfoundland and Labrador—Biography. | LCSH: Lighthouses—Newfoundland and Labrador. | LCSH: Newfoundland and Labrador—Biography. | LCGFT: Autobiographies.

Classification: LCC VK1140.P67 A3 2022 | DDC 387.1/55092 — dc23

———————————————————————————————————————————————

© 2022 by Barry Porter

all rights reserved.

No part of the work covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic or mechanical—without the written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed to Access Copyright, The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, 1 Yonge Street, Suite 800, Toronto, ON M5E 1E5. This applies to classroom use as well. For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll-free to 1-800-893-5777.

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Canada

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We acknowledge the [financial] support of the Government of Canada. Nous reconnaissons l’appui [financier] du gouvernement du Canada. We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation for our publishing activities.

Dedication

Dedicated to my wife, Alice, and Dylan and Sarah,

plus all the keepers of the lights around

Newfoundland and Labrador

I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead. — Mark Twain

Introduction

This book has been kicking around in the back of my brain for over ten years, so with extra COVID time on my hands, I decided to put my lighthouse stories to paper and into this book. Lightkeeper, or lighthouse keeper, is a unique career and lifestyle that few people get to experience and most people know very little about. I hope my stories will enlighten the reader about this little-known way of life that existed around the rugged coast of Newfoundland Labrador.

This book covers the twenty-three years I was in the Canadian Coast Guard lightkeeper department. These tales are my stories and events told to the best of my ability using my personal photo collection and notes from my diary. The dates, events, and names mentioned are accurate to the best of my knowledge. I apologize if I missed a name or mentioned some minor detail incorrectly.

Throughout this book I use CCG to refer to the Canadian Coast Guard, and instead of always writing the word lightkeeper, lighthouse keeper, or keeper of the light, I sometimes just use keeper. I use Surgeon’s Cove Head instead of Surgeon’s Cove Point, because locally that is the name used. Sometimes I also use just the Head or the Light. I use miles and feet, instead of kilometres and metres, because that was the measurement we used at work. I also call the large paper freighters out of the port of Botwood paper boats, which is what they were locally named.

So, sit back and join me on my recollection of my many adventures as a lightkeeper. I hope my book brings you some enjoyment.



Lighthouse Locations, Notre Dame Bay. (1) Surgeon’s Cove Head Lighthouse on Exploits Island, (2) Long Point Lighthouse on Twillingate Island, (3) Bacalhao Island Lighthouse off Herring Neck and Change Islands, (4) Puffin Island Lighthouse off Greenspond.

1 Bacalhao Island and the Beginning

It was almost midnight, and I was sitting on the frozen, jagged rocks at the base of the light tower on Bacalhao Island, over 325 feet above sea level. I was spying out through the cold darkness of a November night with a 100-year-old brass telescope in my grasp. I had braced it on my knees to steady it from my shivering body and the freezing wind. There was not a star nor a moon to be seen—it was as black as your boot. The wind was raw and blowing out of the north, cutting right through my bones. I was determined to have a detailed look out into the abyss since I had made the extra effort to get up there. We had gotten word on the VHF radio a few hours earlier that there was a lone speedboat overdue. An elderly man from Fogo Island had been out hunting turrs by himself and had not returned. Not a good situation to be in.

Bacalhao Lighthouse is located on a small island approximately three miles northeast of Herring Neck and four miles west of Change Islands in Notre Dame Bay. I had been working as an official lightkeeper on this secluded island for a couple of years by now and had spent day after day observing the local small speedboats and the large ships cruising past this light station. Over time, I had gotten keen at identifying who was out on these rough Atlantic waters around this island. I knew the colours of the speedboats, their shapes, and even the silhouettes when cruising back home in the failing light of the evening. In some cases, I could recognize the fishermen’s stance in the boat, how they wore their cap, the shape and flair of the vessel’s bow, and the favoured routes certain local boat operators used. On that particular day, all the local boats from Herring Neck, Pikes Arm, and the Too Good Arm area had returned home safe and sound. But this overdue boat was from a little farther to the east of our lighthouse.

After supper I had walked out on our helicopter pad a couple of times for a look out through the bleak darkness but did not see anything. Our view to the east was somewhat limited from where the lightkeeper’s dwelling and engine room were located. The best vantage point was way up on the mountaintop, where the old cast-iron light tower and main light were located. This was the highest land on Bacalhao Island. To get up there would mean a challenging twenty-five-minute hike in the dark up over the snow- and ice-covered hill.

For the next couple of hours, my co-worker and I monitored the Canadian Coast Guard radio and our own CB radio for updates on the missing hunter. From time to time there would be some chatter about this missing boat on the airwaves from the local Twillingate and Change Island CB radio operators. Several people had their opinions on what happened and even where the hunter might be located, considering the tides and the winds. The radio operator at Comfort Cove Coast Guard Radio had informed us a little earlier that a Canadian Coast Guard ship was tasked to the case and was heading to the area to conduct a search for the lost hunter. I must say, that was comforting news to us.

As time passed, I kept thinking how miserable it would be to spend a long, dreary night out in an open boat like this poor bird hunter. I knew I would not want to be broken down out in the middle of the wild, cold Atlantic Ocean in an open speedboat on any night. I discussed it with the other lightkeeper, and after some thought, I decided I would make the trek to the top of Bacalhao Island for a proper spy out over the vast, lonely ocean. My co-worker mumbled and said it was probably a total waste of time. Maybe it was, but deep down I felt I should at least take one more look. I slowly got dressed for the cold I knew I was about to face once I stepped outside the dwelling. I grabbed the flashlight, a set of binoculars, and the trusty old telescope, which was issued to the station way back in 1894, and headed out the door.

The narrow trail was slippery and rough going, with icy patches mixed with four to five inches of snow in places. I took my time—I did not want to break into a sweat and then freeze, or even worse, slip and injure myself while climbing up this greasy hill in the dark. It was pitch black except for the bright beam of light that flashed from the tower every nine and a half seconds—shooting out a bright ray of light, miles and miles into the darkness, like a laser beam. Eventually, I reached the summit and took a couple of minutes to catch my breath. I was pleased the visibility was still good—I could see for miles from up here. I did a quick scan across the horizon, straining my bare eyes to see a light, a flare, a reflection, or maybe even a glow from a burning rag dipped in gasoline. But nothing! I looked over at the glowing lights of the town of old Twillingate, then a little farther along shore, northward to the comforting beam of light shining out from Long Point Lighthouse, my old workplace. I could see all the way out to the east. Behind me, the lights of Change Islands were twinkling in the frosty air, but I could not see Fogo Island. Fogo was roughly eleven miles away, and there was a fog bank or snow flurries occurring over in that area.

I sat down on the most comfortable rock I could find. I pressed my back against the cold, cast-iron light tower and let my eyes adjust to the lack of light and the bleakness. For the next sixty minutes, I spied through the darkness using the old telescope and the binoculars, slowly scanning across the vast ocean inch by inch, looking, searching for anything. Finally, after many unsuccessful sweeps and with the wind biting into my unprotected face, I surrendered. I carefully made the slow journey back down the hill to the comfort of the warm house, located far below me, near the freezing ocean’s edge. Once I got inside the house and warmed up with a hot cup of tea, I signed off in the lightkeeper’s logbook. My long shift was now complete. I crawled into my cozy bunkbed with a contented feeling that I had at least tried. Slowly I drifted off to sleep, all the time thinking about the poor hunter out there floating around in his speedboat, somewhere. Early next morning, just as I got up, my co-worker informed me he had received word that one of our Coast Guard ships had successfully located the missing bird hunter—cold, wet, but thankfully alive!

Bacalhao Lighthouse aerial winter pic

Let me rewind back a few years and tell you how I ended up working in this unique career as a lightkeeper for the Canadian Coast Guard. On a stormy February 15 back in 1982, the mighty Ocean Ranger sank off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, and that was the day I gave up my desire to work offshore. Just a few months earlier, I was sitting in a huge office on the top floor of Atlantic Place, being questioned by a gentleman with a Texan accent and wearing a genuine stetson hat and cowboy boots. I had driven into St. John’s and was being interviewed for the position of welder on a prized drilling rig, the Ocean Ranger. It was owned by Ocean Drilling and Exploration Company Inc. (ODECO) of New Orleans, USA. The office overlooked the well-sheltered harbour of St. John’s—the view was beautiful. On the wall was a huge mural of the mighty drilling rig. The photo extended from the floor all the way to the ceiling and was approximately fourteen feet wide. It was very impressive.

There were several dozen men there that day hanging about the hallways for interviews on a wide range of positions on this drilling rig. The men had come from all parts of the island hoping for that prized berth. I had over five years welding experience under my belt, having worked in the mines at Labrador City for the Iron Ore Company of Canada (IOC) and for the International Nickel Company of Canada (INCO) in Thompson, Manitoba, and for Sherritt Gordon Mines in Leaf Rapids, Manitoba. I also worked at other welding positions connected with the oil industry in the Wetaskiwin/Camrose area in Alberta. Also, I had worked the last year at Freake’s Welding, a local welding shop on Stanhope Road near Lewisporte.

The Texan cowboy asked me several thought-provoking questions during my interview, about isolation, working offshore, and being away from family. The interview was a success, and shortly after that, a small handful of us interviewees had to proceed to the Health Sciences Centre for a thorough medical examination. I passed that as well. Then I was instructed to go home and wait for a phone call from their office. After a month or two of patiently waiting at home in Porterville, I phoned ODECO’s office in St. John’s inquiring about the job. I was told that day I was on the list to be hired. There were two welders assigned to the rig, and the next time one welder quit, the job would be mine.

But it was not to be. After hearing the terribly tragic news that February morning, I decided I was finished with my welding career once and for all. Since that terrible sinking, I have never worked as a welder.

The time had come for me to change careers. It was time to head in a different direction—major decisions to be made again on my journey through life. The question was thrown at me once again: What am I going to be when I grow up? Maybe I could go back to school, take another trade, or maybe I could go farming with my dear father in Porterville. My little hometown was blessed with acres of rich, level topsoil when the glaciers receded thousands of years ago. This eventually resulted in the small village of Porterville becoming an important farming community for the area. Most of my distant ancestors, and several of my current living relatives, were hard-working farmers. The Porter farmers had been growing crops and supplying the nearby communities of Lewisporte, Twillingate, Fogo, and Change Islands with some of the best locally grown vegetables for about a hundred years.

Being a farmer was a hard physical career working from daylight to dark. I had watched my father, Max, farm all his life, and he had harvested his final crop last fall, a few months short of his ninetieth birthday. Not only was it hard work, but the only paydays were in one short season. You would only receive payment in the fall of the year after all the crops were harvested. I could not see myself working and living that lifestyle. I had spent too many blistering hot summers as a kid dragging my bony knees through endless drills of turnips and potatoes, weeding, thinning, or making hay in the fields. I just did not have a strong enough desire to become a full-fledged farmer for the next thirty or forty years. So, I went to Plan C.

My buddy Ed Loveless, who I had been with in Alberta a couple of years earlier, had just begun working with the Canadian Coast Guard as a relief lighthouse keeper. After some thought, I decided to make a 180-degree turn in my career and check into that line of work. A month or so later, I heard the Canadian Coast Guard was updating its relief lighthouse keepers list for the manned lighthouses on the northeast coast of Newfoundland.

I drove into Gander to visit the manpower/unemployment office to inquire into this possible new career. As it happened, the career counsellor there informed me that personnel from the Canadian Coast Guard were conducting interviews in Lewisporte that very day. I thought I had blown my opportunity because I had not even submitted an application. The lady at Manpower was extremely helpful. She phoned the Brittany Inns in Lewisporte and spoke to Mr. Randy Dawe from the Canadian Coast Guard and informed him I was looking for a job. Luckily, Mr. Dawe told her to send me out for an interview. I quickly filled out a general application page and drove back to Lewisporte.

Nervous, I arrived at the hotel late that afternoon. By now all the interviews had been wrapped up, and I entered one of their hotel rooms and was given a thorough interview there. Mr. Dawe, Mrs. Noftall, and Mr. May fired questions at me non-stop for almost twenty minutes. It was unnerving, but when it was over, they were incredibly positive, and I made it onto their revised lightkeeper relief list. The two men who had previous lightkeeper work experience scored ahead of me on the list, but at least this was a start—a start to a new career for me as a keeper of the light with the Canadian Coast Guard.

Taken from the lightkeeper’s manual printed by the Ministry of Transport Canada in 1970:

A lightkeeper is responsible for maintaining a high standard of performance in all light station activities; maintain a watch for fog or other weather phenomena that produce reduced visibility below approximately 2 miles; operate and carry out routine service on navigational light or lights; operate and perform routine running maintenance on fog signal equipment; operate and perform routine running maintenance on main generating equipment; upkeep of buildings and grounds; maintain light station logbooks of operation, work performed, plant and equipment.

Expanding on the description of a lightkeeper’s job: a lightkeeper had to work on some of the most remote, isolated, and beautiful islands surrounded by the mighty, cold Atlantic Ocean, on windswept points of land perched up on a cliff. There were no neighbours to talk to, no grocery stores next door, or building supply shops down the road. You were stuck on a rock for four and a half weeks or more, away from your loved ones, for better or for worse.

A lightkeeper had to be a handyman, a jack of all trades. We were responsible for the maintenance of the station, including the dwelling, the light tower, the outbuildings (sheds), helicopter drop pads, the many outdoor stairs and steps, handrails and fences. Also the boat and outboard motor, boathouse, spar and boom, and winch. If something required repairs or general upkeep, the lightkeeper would have to perform it. If there was a more serious issue, we would have to contact our supervisors at the Marine Aids Office at the Canadian Coast Guard base on the southside of St. John’s harbour. That important office was our main contact for all work-related issues, whether a helicopter request for shift changeover, diesel motor problems, holiday request, supplies, or personal issues. We dealt mainly with Randy Dawe and Debbie Stead. In later years, Gerry Cantwell and Paul Bowering were in the office. They were all good people, and they must have had their hands full dealing with all the lightkeepers and their issues.

Lightkeepers were required to be half-decent carpenters. We had to maintain and repair the dwelling and outbuildings. Occasionally we would have to replace a broken window, a blown-off door, or a handrail on the fence or walkways. Sometimes we would replace a section of rotten or damaged clapboard. It was a never-ending process.

Another thing we did was apply lots of paint. The lighthouses were continually battered by harsh winds and salt spray from the wild Atlantic waters. Everything wooden or metal had to be scraped, chipped, primed, and painted regularly or it would not take long before it looked rundown. We had paint-splattered ladders and dozens of partly worn-out paintbrushes in stock all the time, not to mention the cases of gallons of paint on hand in the stockroom. Matchless oil was the paint of choice, in white, red, and grey colours. These were the main colours used by the Coast Guard, and we did not spare them.

Our mechanical skills were required from time to time. We would perform oil changes on the well-run Lister diesels or repair or adjust the air-cooling systems attached to them. Occasionally we would perform minor maintenance on the outboard motor, chainsaw, or the winch.

We were bookkeepers—we kept a daily log in our lightkeeper logbooks of weather and fog conditions and all duties carried out at the station. Also, we kept an inventory of all supplies required to operate the station, from toilet paper to oil paint to diesel fuel. And there were our own personal groceries inventory. We also kept records of every species of whale we sighted from the lighthouse. These reports were sent into Dr. Jon Lien, the head of the Whale Research Group with Memorial University in St. John’s.

Radio operation was another part of our job. Daily weather and ice reports were radioed via VHF radio to Comfort Cove Coast Guard Radio station, which was located on the crest of Loon Bay Hill. It was also our responsibility to report all icebergs visible from our lighthouse, especially any icebergs or growlers located near the main shipping routes. We contacted the Canadian Coast Guard helicopters and ships through the VHF radio when required. All our Coast Guard communications were carried out on channel 19 of the VHF radio or through the mobile telephone. There were four manned lighthouses in this area within radio range with whom we communicated almost daily—Gull Island (Cape St. John, White Bay), Surgeon’s Cove Head (Exploits Island), Long Point (Twillingate), and Bacalhao Island. Also, there were the never-ending daily communications to fisher persons, hunters, and recreational boaters with local weather, sea, and ice conditions, plus calls from the many radio buffs on VHF and CB radios in the bay.

Electronic technician was another, unofficial, box we had to tick to be a lightkeeper. A lightkeeper would have to replace the odd fuse, cable, or microphone on the VHF radio or sometimes relocate the external antenna. Lightkeepers used their personal radio equipment to communicate to loved ones back home. This required a radio system at home and an identical system at the lighthouse. During my years working at the lighthouses, I and most other lightkeepers I know spent thousands of dollars on radio systems. If I wanted to talk to my sweet wife, Alice, I had to have a good working radio. Back then, we did not have cellphones or computers with the option to connect by Facetime or Zoom calls. Over the years, my own communication inventory included two regular CB radios, two CB radios with sideband (which had extra power and range), two power converters, two VHF radios that required two more power converters, one portable VHF radio, hundreds of feet of radio coaxial cable, dozens of cable fittings and joiners, C-clamps, and five or six different antennas ranging in sizes for CB and VHF. The high winds and salt spray were brutal on any antenna and cables out on those windswept islands. In addition to this, I had various lengths of pipe, made up for radio towers, to which I could attach the antennas. This also required hundreds of feet of cable used as guy wires to keep the towers and antennas secure during high winds.

Lightkeepers had to be counsellors, shrinks, and mentors. This was not in the job description, but it certainly was part of life out there. The shifts on the island stations were a long thirty-two days on and a short thirty-two days off. Later, our department office changed it to twenty-eight days on the lighthouse and twenty-eight days off. The shift on land lighthouses (accessible by road) was one eight-hour shift every day, fifty-two weeks of the year.

The scenery and the landscape around us at our office were breathtaking. We had stunning icebergs and whales practically in our backyards. The peacefulness and connection