by John Demont
The first lighthouse in Canada—the second on the entire coast of North America after Little Brewster Island in Boston Harbor—was built on Cape Breton Island in 1734 at the fortress of Louisbourg, the major landfall for France in the New World. No surprise there: eight years earlier, three hundred people died when a French transport ship ran aground a few miles east of the fortress. When completed, the Louisbourg light tower stood about seventy-five feet high. The first light was a circle of cod liver oil—fed wicks set in a copper ring mounted on cork floats. Its flame was visible for eighteen nautical miles, an impressive distance for those times. Not far from the base of the light was a small house containing room for oil storage and quarters for the light keeper. From 1733 until 1744, this was Jean Grenard dit Belair, a retired sergeant of the Compagnies franches de la marine, and Canada’s first full-time light keeper.
“THERE’S something about the light tower itself,” Elaine Graham—a real person—tells me over the telephone. “People are smitten with them. I think it’s a real click magnet: everyone wants to take a photo. I guess it is romantic in a way. A light is the ultimate lifesaving symbol. It is an expression of compassion.” She says these words, in her English accent, from the Point Atkinson Lighthouse station, which also really exists, on a point of land in West Vancouver. It was here in 1871 that the federal government built a light to help coax British Columbia into Canada. The station she and her keeper husband, Donald, moved into in 1980 had been rebuilt sixty-eight years earlier on the foundation of the first light. She lives there still, even though the station turned automated in 1996 and her husband—who worked in tandem with another man as the light’s last keepers—died five years later.
It’s her home, but it’s also a museum. Someday that’s what every lighthouse in this country will be. At that point, a dramatic human narrative will have run its course. Death brought the first light stations to this land: along the coast of British Columbia, where the mouth of Juan de Fuca is nicknamed the “graveyard of the Pacific” because of the large numbers of shipwrecks there in the days before light stations were built.
But also on the east coast, where wrecks led to the construction of a lighthouse at the summit of Gull Island, off Newfoundland’s Bay de Verde Peninsula after a sealer discovered the bodies of fourteen passengers and the crew from the Welsh brigantine Queen of Swansea in 1868. Lighthouses, in time, stood on Sable Island, a spit of land known as the “graveyard of the Atlantic,” where since 1583 there have been some 350 recorded shipwrecks. They blinked on both ends of St. Paul Island, north of Cape Breton, where each spring fishermen from the mainland would find the frozen bodies of shipwrecked seamen huddled in crude shelters, waiting for help that never came.
The waters around Seal Island, off the southwest tip of Nova Scotia, were particularly treacherous. Before anyone lived on the island, shipwrecked mariners who reached its shores routinely died of starvation and exposure during the harsh winters. By the early years of the nineteenth century, a grim tradition had evolved: every spring preachers and residents from the mainland villages of Yarmouth and Barrington would get in boats and make their way to the island to find and bury the winter’s dead. One year twenty-one people had to be buried in shallow graves in a single day.
In 1823, two families, the Hichens and the Crowells, settled on the island in the hope of assisting the unfortunate souls cast ashore during the winter storms. In time, Richard Hichens, who himself had been shipwrecked on Cape Sable, married Mary Crowell, who had heard first-hand many stories of the deaths on Seal Island from her father, a Barrington preacher. On the night of November 28, 1831, the island’s fixed light was lit for the first time. That same evening a daughter was born to Richard and Mary, thus beginning a family light-keeping tradition that would last more than a century on Seal Island.
By the turn of the nineteenth century, Canada had more than eight hundred manned lighthouses. They stood on lonely islands and in the harbours of burgeoning metropolises. A few even winked in the Prairie province of Manitoba. In the country with the longest coastline in the world, the keepers kept the light on in the dark. They guided the ships and sailors home. From the beginning, they were the heroic men and women who climbed into boats in weather capable of sending schooners and brigantines to the bottom, to come to the aid of the shipwrecked.
Yet as I write these words, there are precisely fifty-one manned lighthouses in Canada: twenty-seven in British Columbia, twenty-three in Newfoundland and Labrador and one in New Brunswick. What the heck happened? Technology, mostly. New equipment meant it was no longer necessary to have a human on-site to operate lights and activate foghorns. Radar, radio beacons, satellite-based global positioning systems and advances in communications made navigation more reliable and safer for anyone with a boat that had the technology. Between 1970 and 1996, 264 lighthouses—including every one in Nova Scotia, Quebec, Prince Edward Island and Ontario—were automated. Keepers’ houses were razed. Lighthouses were destroyed, replaced by utilitarian skeleton-tower lights. Many of the buildings that remained standing were abandoned and left to vandals. Individuals and entire communities stepped forward to save the historic stations. But red tape made it hard to do much.
That was just the way the universe seemed to be going: by then a few countries with remote and expansive coastlines, like Chile and Brazil, still had staffed lights. A few technicians in charge of operating and maintaining navigational aids could be found in lighthouses in Portugal and Denmark. But Australia had de-staffed its stations. Every lighthouse in the United States was by then automated and only one, Boston Light, still had a government-paid keeper.
Only the loudness of the public outcry saved the last of the keepers in British Columbia and Newfoundland and Labrador. The government ran into such resistance that it abandoned a 1998 plan to remove the light keepers in those provinces. A year later it tabled, then put on hold, another bill designed to do the same thing. Before long the government was back with its Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act, under which it declared 487 active and 488 inactive lighthouses “surplus” to Canada’s requirements. The fifty staffed light stations in British Columbia and Newfoundland and Labrador were, for the moment, safe. In 2010, according to a Senate report, British Columbia’s lights employed thirty-seven full-time staff.
Which, I guess, is where this book began.
LIGHT keepers, there can be little doubt, will someday soon take their place alongside voyageurs and trappers, matchmakers and milliners. At some point, they will invariably join buffalo hunters, whalers and buggy whip makers. In time, their names will stand on a roll that includes seamstresses and steeplejacks, butchers and bootblacks, cobblers and clock-makers, gandy dancers and gravediggers. Their day is surely coming, just as it is for nuns, long-haul truckers, general-store owners and telephone linemen. The die is cast. It is written in stone. The fat lady has sung. Technological change, anyone can see, is part of it. Other cruel forces are also at work here. The dogged pursuit of “efficiencies.” But also a global marketplace that doesn’t just mean you can sell your goods or services to Mumbai; it means those smart, fast, hungry folks in Shanghai can sell their stuff in Moose Jaw or Little Heart’s Ease. The way things stand, that’s not really a fair fight.
And so there goes the old world, the world most of us are used to. The numbers don’t lie: in 1871 when Canada was a new country, just 19 percent of us lived in cities. Today 81 percent of us make our homes where it’s possible to get a Starbucks latte or see Quentin Tarantino gore on the big screen. That’s out of necessity as well as choice. Of the nearly seventeen million people working in this country in 2006, the time of the last census, nearly one-third worked in sales and service occupations, while another three million were in business, finance and administration jobs. In other words, they did city work.
The Statistics Canada folk, on the other hand, found just 3,000 boat builders, 2,000 shoe repairers and 6,000 jewellers and watch repairers. Some 21,000 men and women operated printing presses
. Another 31,000 made fine furniture. But our waterfronts employed just 6,000 longshoremen. In this big country, there were only 4,000 land surveyors and 7,000 people who made maps. Some of the juxtapositions were disheartening: there were 12,000 librarians, compared with 20,000 Canadians working in casinos. More people described themselves as “image consultants” than funeral directors and embalmers. The total number of auditors, accountants and investment professionals—315,000—was more than all the carpenters, electricians, cabinetmakers, roofers and glaziers in this country put together.
What about the people we talked about in this book? Public relations and communications practitioners outnumbered writers and journalists. There were 870 blacksmiths in Canada in 2006, a category that also included die setters. About 10,000 men and a few women operated our trains. There were 200,000 farmers. These people may not necessarily disappear tomorrow. But my travels didn’t make me think that their offspring could dream, with any assurance, of following in the family business, be it operating the projector at a drive-in movie, selling records or delivering milk.
If I live long enough, one day in the not-distant future I’ll sit a grandchild or two on my knee and tell them all about those folks. Like one of those ancient coots going on about the good ole days, I’ll enlighten them about other things too: about friends, family and a life that, to one kid in one small city at the far end of the continent, seemed golden. If I really get going, I’ll even tell them about what it was like in 1967, when the land seemed to vibrate with possibility and everything we wanted—even if we didn’t know quite what that was—was out there shimmering on the horizon.
I’ll slap my thigh like Walter Brennan. Then I’ll tell them how it was to mosey around in the neighbourhood where I now write these words. It’s smaller than it seemed then. It always is when some codger goes back to visit the stomping ground of youth. Back then, after all, you were just a kid who was close to the ground, so everything seemed huge. The universe seemed bigger because days stretched longer before instant messaging and Call of Duty.
There was space back in the time of fountain pens, pond hockey and Saturday matinees. The possibilities were infinite when you were left to your own designs so long as you returned intact for supper, as the evening meal was known in many of our households in those olden times.
Parents, at least in this neighbourhood, didn’t worry about bad stuff happening because nothing bad ever really happened to anybody. So we were free, like gap-toothed, snot-nosed Odysseuses, to wander. Near on half a century later I walk these streets still, hoping for a glimpse of a kid who was often seen in these parts: Adidas-shod, Levi’s-clad, pockets bulging with pennies, lint, Bob Pulford hockey cards, a half-eaten bag of Planters peanuts. He was, I know for a fact, often running. It was not a graceful act. But no one was there to see it. He was just a boy. This was just a street. Back in the innocent days.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The most obvious debts of thanks for this book are to the subjects themselves who so generously gave me unfettered access to their lives.
An immense thanks goes out to Paul McNeil, who used his vast community newspaper web to help me throughout the course of this book. I’m also deeply indebted to renaissance man Chris Mills—writer, broadcaster, lighthouse keeper and lover of black rum—for his knowledge of all things related to coastal lights. Endlessly creative blacksmith John Little, as well was a huge help.
My wise agent Dean Cooke made this book happen. At Doubleday Canada, Tim Rostron and freelance copyeditor Beverley Sotolov took my unhewn lumber and fashioned it into something; designer Five Seventeen made it look good; Susan Burns oversaw the creation.
A big shout out to my children, Belle and Sam, for their encouragement and keeping me grounded in the here-and-now. The biggest thanks, as always, to Lisa Napier for, well, everything.
NOTES
PROLOGUE
Pierre Berton’s line about 1967 in Canada is from his book, 1967: The Last Good Year, Doubleday Canada, 1997.
The information about the jobs of yesteryear came from the 1911 Census of Canada p. 14-29.
The forecasts about the expected declines in traditional jobs came from Frank Feather, Canada’s Best Career Guide 2000, Warwick Books, 1999
Malcolm Gladwell’s thoughts on satisfying work come from his book Outliers: The Story of Success, Little, Brown & Company, 2008, p. 149-151
Daniel Gilbert’s thoughts come from his article “Times to Remember, Times to Forget,” The New York Times, Dec. 30, 2009
CHAPTER ONE: ACROSS THIS LAND
The information about the relationship between the formation of Canada and railways comes from The Canadian Encyclopedia: Canada Since Confederation along with National Policy and the CPR—Canadian History Portal.
The information about the formation of Via Rail comes from various sources.
The specs for the Canadian come from Via Rail.
The list of railway lingo comes from Jordan McCallum and other sources.
The figures on railways comes from the Central Intelligence Agency 2011 http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/longest-rail-network.html
The information on how the rail system works in Canada comes from Jordan McCallum and Craig Stead.
The information on railway accidents comes from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada’s 1999 rail stats and an assortment of other sources.
CHAPTER TWO: HOLY SWEET MOTHER
The information about the gender makeup of Canadian veterinary colleges comes from the “Canadian Colleges of Veterinary Medicine” entry in the Canadian Encyclopedia.
CHAPTER THREE: THE MILKMAN COMETH
The section on the Divco truck comes from Robert R. Ebert and John S. Rienzo Jr., Divco, A History of the Truck and Company, Antique Power Inc. Yellow Springs, Ohio, 1997, p. iii
Some of the information about the historical duties of the milkman comes from the Palo Alto History.com, a website devoted to the history of Palo Alto, California.
I interviewed Les Bagley, director of the Divco Club of America via email.
The reasons for the decline in milk consumption come from Wendi Hiebert’s food blog FoodWise.
The information on declining milk delivery comes via an email exchange with the Canadian Dairy Commission.
The information on Farmers Dairy comes from a number of sources including Grant Gerke, Farmers Dairy’s form/fill/seal system creates new landscape, Packaging Digest 2003 and author’s interview with Catherine Ludovice, marketing director Farmers Dairy.
The figure about urban populations in Canada comes from Statistics Canada. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-008-X/2007004/10313-eng.htm
The information on the negative impacts of working at night comes from Brandon Keim, “Nightshift makes Metabolism Go Haywire,” Wired Science, March 2, 2009; Navdeep Kaur Marwah, “Women Working the Night Shift Inch Closer to Breast Cancer,” MSN, Midday, March 4, 2009; “Working the Night Shift May be Hazardous to Your Health,” Health News, Sept. 29, 2009 and Kenneth Macdonald, “Night Shifts Spark Cancer Pay-Out,” BBC, March 15, 2009.
CHAPTER FOUR: WATERING HOLE FOR DREAMERS
The information on the history of Sam the Record Man comes from http://news.library.ryerson.ca/musiconyonge/”a-historical-corner/
The information on the big department stores in Canada comes from a variety of sources but mainly The Department Store Museum website http://departmentstoremuseum.blogspot.ca which includes the floor plan for the Toronto Simpson’s.
The information about the recording industry came from http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2011/03/28/top-10-dying-industries/
The Michael Chabon line comes from his book Telegraph Avenue, HarperCollins Publishers Ltd., 2012, p.7
CHAPTER FIVE: EVERY JESELLY ONE OF THEM
The information about the 2003 election comes from “PEI Votes—and Votes and Votes,” John DeMont, Macleans magazine, Oct. 13, 2003 and http://results.elections.on.ca/results/2003_results/stat_sum_totals.jsp.
Th
e number of Atlantic Journalism Awards won by Prince Edward Island media outlets comes from the Atlantic Journalism Awards.
The notion of the ephemeral nature of Google searches was explored in depth by Robert D. Kaplan in “Cultivating Loneliness,” The Columbia Journalism Review, January/February 2006.
The information for the Montague history section comes from the Town of Montague’s website.
The portrait of Jim MacNeill came from “The Common Touch: a colorful publisher stirs the pot in PEI,” John DeMont, Macleans, May 9, 1994, interviews with his son Paul and MacNeill’s friend, the singer and entrepreneur Denis Ryan as well as David Cadogan’s May 21, 1998 eulogy for MacNeill.
The sampling of stories and advertisements in the Eastern Graphic came from the paper during July 29 and Aug. 12, 2010.
The rural depopulation information comes from Census Snapshot of Canada—Urbanization, Statistics Canada, 222.statcan.gc.ca
CHAPTER SIX: IRON MAN
Information about the history of blacksmithing comes from The History of Blacksmithing, the National Blacksmiths and Welders Association
The Kane & Son website is https://www.blacksmithsdepot.com.
The quote from Richard Sennet, is from his book The Craftsman, Yale University Press, 2008, p. 9
