Maritime Museum exhibit tells stories of B.C.'s lighthouses
Credit to Author: Denise Ryan| Date: Sun, 03 Nov 2019 19:00:16 +0000
Justine Etzkorn doesn’t light whale-oil fires, polish brass, or trim wicks, but she keeps the beacon flashing at Carmanah Point Light Station on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island where the Pacific Ocean tips into the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
Since 2010, when Etzkorn became a full-time lightkeeper, she has dragged a crashed plane off the beach, hauled a 1,500-pound sea lion carcass from a creek, tended to countless injured hikers along the nearby West Coast Trail, and kept boaters safe.
Etzkorn, 35, grew up on the lights. Her parents, Janet and Jerry Etzkorn, were also lightkeepers.
“I went away to school, lived another life for a while, and then I came back,” said Etzkorn.
Etzkorn says she loves the isolation, the unpredictability, the exposure to wild nature, and “the sense of liminality where you are this little beacon of civilization but around you anything is possible.”
Life on the lights hasn’t changed much since she was a kid growing up with mail once a month, no phone, and no TV. There is satellite coverage now, although it’s not Netflix-friendly, and it’s still a three-day walk to civilization.
Carmanah Point is one of just 27 remaining staffed light stations in B.C.
B.C.’s lighthouses are on full display at an new exhibition, Protecting Our Coast: The Shifting Role of B.C. Lighthouses, that opened at the Maritime Museum of British Columbia in Victoria on Oct. 31.
Brittany Vis, the museum’s associate director, said the exhibition will highlight the changing roles of light stations over the years and feature artifacts, photos and original logbooks from many of B.C.’s light stations.
“Light stations are more than just navigational aids for boaters,” said Vis. “As culture and political situations have shifted, so have the roles of lighthouses.”
Some served as military bases during the Second World War, and in 1942, Estevan lighthouse was shelled by a Japanese submarine. Many of B.C.’s 59 light stations were decommissioned during the recession of the 1980s, but that doesn’t mean they are out of service. Many automated sites serve as ecological preserves and bird sanctuaries.
Even as lightkeepers have been phased out, they remain almost mythical figures in the public imagination.
“People are curious about that lifestyle and the romantic stories that come out of that,” said Vis.
Maritime museum volunteer James Tirrul-Jones lived the romance of “living on the lights” from 1973 to 1974 at Bonilla Island on the eastern side of Hecate Strait. He and his wife had sailed up the coast and found themselves running low on money.
“I had taken a course in small-engine mechanics, I had sailing experience, I understood how to fix things, and I could use the radio,” recalled Tirrul-Jones. He was hired on the spot.
Former light keeper James Tirrul-Jones in 1974, after his year as a light keeper on Bonilla Island.
Tirrul-Jones said as a lightkeeper he felt deeply connected to others, despite the isolation. “You know there’s people out on the water depending on you.”
Throughout the day, Tirrul-Jones reported the weather. “I knew that at that moment, somewhere out there people were listening. I never once felt any loneliness.”
“Before the days of GPS and all the electronics, lighthouses were critical. They were the only thing between you and the rocks,” said Tirrul-Jones. “A lighthouse is hope.”