Lighthouse Legacies
Published on 19. September 2025
240 pages
978-1-77108-114-6 (ISBN)
Description
Imagine living your life perched on a tiny island, without electricity, exposed to the fury of the sea, and always at the service of the mariner. This is how lightkeepers and their families spent their lives, even up until the 1960s. We are very close to losing the last of the people who lived this isolated life and experienced the heyday of lightkeeping in Canada. Lighthouse Legacies lets us share in the memories of those who kept the lights.
More details
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Chris Mills built his first lighthouse when was six years old. At the age of twenty-four, he landed his first three-week job as a relief assistant keeper on Cross Island, near Lunenburg. Three weeks turned into nine years on eleven lighthouses in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and British Columbia. Chris now works part time as a deckhand on a Coast Guard lifeboat and as a radio news announcer in Halifax. He lives in Ketch Harbour, NS, with his wife and daughter.
Content
- Intro
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Credits
- Dedication
- Table of Contents
- Preface
- Lighthouses are a relic of the past
- 1.The Lightkeepers
- The Cape's lit!
- I'm never gonna be on no space shuttle!
- His cooking is slowly killing him
- I'll never be able to do this!
- Good for Coughs, Colds, Itchy Holes.
- 2. The Nuts and Bolts of Lightkeeping
- She Would Take Off!
- It gave an excellent light
- Foghorns
- All there was, was blood and feathers!
- They'd just shoot halfway out of the water and roll over on one side
- Heyday
- 3. A Family Affair
- We would see other lights blossoming in the dark
- Working with Father
- The lighthouse as a home
- Set for life
- That lighthouse was hopping!
- 4. Lighthouse Women
- That's Not Men's Work!
- Lighthousekeeping and housekeeping
- Sixteen Smileys
- I used to climb the tower and cry
- Evelyn Richardson: An Enduring Brilliance
- My Island of Dreams
- The Most Important Light on the Island
- 5. Foghorns - The Voice of Conscience
- The foghorn was the lifesaver
- I just loved that old thing!
- It literally was like somebody had come into the house!
- Now when will he call?
- Waiting for a foghorn to blow!
- Fun with foghorns
- Who's listening, anyway?
- 6. Wind,Waves, and Weather Whims
- At that very moment, a green wave went by the window
- You'd wash right out to sea
- It was a bad breeze
- It gets kinda hairy!
- You wanna talk about people running around in polka-dot nightgowns!
- She got over it in time
- Ice
- I set outdoors and watched 'er burn
- They were blowing horns and shouting for their lives for the keeper to save them.
- The water's comin' in overthe boat!
- This thing's got a movement all of her own
- 7. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
- I wouldn't trade my childhood for anybody's around
- An adventure every day
- .22s and tea towels
- Slingshots and seals
- Better knights and better ladies
- I lost my childhood
- Wipin' the tears down from her face
- A rugged and healthy lifestyle
- 8. Strange and Wonderful
- Double Alec-Sambro Island's spectre
- Horatio Nelson's ghost
- Forerunners and cold fire
- Bones for Uncle Frank
- Something's watching us
- Holy Jesus! You saw old Jim Burgoyne!
- It was a face you'd never forget
- 9. War
- The ABCs of coastal defence
- Aircraft Detection Corps
- The Army and Chebucto Head
- The war wasn't that far away at all
- It was better than living in the city!
- The end of war
- 10.The End of the Lightkeeper
- Lightkeepers took pride in their station
- Leave it until I'm gone
- It turned us sick to go back there
- I think I'm the most fortunate of men
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgements
- Bibliograhpy
- Index
