How I became a Coast Guard Lightkeeper
Sometime in early 2006, I was visiting my brother, Barry, who was an apartment manager in Vancouver, and in conversation he mentioned a story about one of his tenants. She was telling him she worked for the Canadian Coast Guard and was describing their efforts to find Relief Lightkeepers for their remote stations.
It seems there was an extreme shortage of people who were willing to venture out to these isolated locations, some on not much more than a rock in the middle of the ocean and stay there for a few days or weeks while the permanent keeper goes to the doctor, dentist, or maybe vacation.
Barry said “Bob is stupid enough to do that” so he told me about it and just happened to have the phone number of the person to call. I guess he was right because I called and soon arranged a meeting to find out what this was all about. After going through all the perquisites for the job, security clearance, medical, etc. They said, “We will call you if anything comes up”.
Two days later I got a call. “How would you like to go to Egg Island for a month?” My first response was “What’s an Egg Island?” After a brief explanation of the location and accommodations I was told to get enough food for a month, include a little extra in case the weather is bad, and they can’t get you off right away and get yourself to Port Hardy on Vancouver Island. I think that was when I started to wonder if I made a mistake. Might not be able to get me off in time??? What does that mean?
My instructions were, “Get to the airport by 8 AM. There is a yellow building to the left of the control tower, here is the gate code to get in. Take all your stuff into the building and leave it on the warehouse floor. You can park your car across the road. Wait inside the lounge area and a pilot will pick you up and take you to Egg Island.
And so, starts the adventure. This has been the greatest part time job I could ever imagine.
In my first year I worked on 6 stations, Egg Island, Cape Scott, Quatsino, Triple Island, Scarlett Point, Chrome Island. Shortest stay, Cape Scott 4 days, longest stay, Chrome Island 3 months. Total work time that first year was 285 days
