Evelyn Richardson - We Keep a Light

We Keep a Light

EVELYN M. RICHARDSON

Author of Desired Haven

Copyright Evelyn M. Richardson, 1954, 2005

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission from the publisher, or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, permission from Access Copyright, 1 Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, Ontario M5E 1E5.

Nimbus Publishing Limited
PO Box 9166
Halifax, NS B3K 5M8
(902) 455-4286

Printed and bound in Canada

Cover design: Arthur Carter, Paragon Design
Interior design: Terri Strickland

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Richardson, Evelyn M. (Evelyn May), 1902-1976.
We keep a light / Evelyn M. Richardson.
ISBN 1-55109-529-7
EPUB ISBN 978-1-55109-839-5

1. Richardson, Evelyn M. (Evelyn May), 1902-1976. 2. Richardson family. 3. Lighthouse keepersNova ScotiaBon Portage Island--Biography. I. Title. PS8535.I32Z468 2005 387.1'55'09716 C2005-902966-8

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) and the Canada Council, and of the Province of Nova Scotia through the Department of Tourism, Culture and Heritage for our publishing activities.

To my favourite lightkeeper
Morrill
And his assistants
Anne, Laurie, and Betty June
This book is lovingly dedicated.

Contents

So whether the storm king whitens its shoals,
Or whether by soft winds fanned,
I love the sound of the sea as it rolls
In the hollow of Gods hand;
For I was born within sound of its waves,
And it ever shall be to me
The song of all songs that I love the best,
The roar of the gray old sea, the laugh of the summer sea.

Unknown

CHAPTER 1
Introduction

Y ou will find our little island of Bon Portage (pronounced like on shortage) on few maps. It lies off the southwest tip of Nova Scotia, and its northern end is within a mile of that part of the mainland known as the Great Bend, just where the coast line of the province turns easterly and westerly. The island slants seaward in a southerly direction and away from the curve of the coast, so that its southern end where the lighthouse stands is more remote from the mainland and more exposed to sea and wind than any other portion.

The island is about three miles long and very narrow, its width varying from approximately three-quarters of a mile at both ends to less than one-quarter of a mile in the center. Its area is between six and seven hundred acres. The whole island is low-lying, at no place does it rise more than twenty feet above sea level, and the highest land is found on the southern and northern ends. The center consists of low wet swamp, known in these parts as savanna; much of it is below the level of the sea, protected from being flooded at abnormally high tides by a sea wall of beach rocks which these same high tides have thrown up against their own depredations. Looking across this low centre one can easily imagine Bon Portage becoming two separate islands in the course of a few more years encroachment by an ever-greedy sea. This was actually so for a short time during one exceptionally high tide, when the sea covered all the low center and waves swept across from either side to meet in the middle of the savanna.

The appearance of the island from the mainland, or from the nearer vantage point of a boats deck, leads no one into lyrics of rapture concerning its beauty. In fact, one friend tactlessly described it as that Godforsaken strip of swamp and rock. That statement, however, does it somewhat less than justice, and it bears closer acquaintance more graciously than one might expect; it has even its spots of woodland beauty, in the shelter of the belts of fir and spruce that ring the island and cover a good part of it. But all aspects of the island itself pale beside the views it affords of the sea, stretching unbroken for hundreds of miles from the western beach, and breaking in unending, ever-changing splendor on the rocks and reefs that gird the shore.

Since this coast, typical of Nova Scotias shore line, is cut and eaten away by many arms of the seasounds, bays, coves, harbors, and passages there are a corresponding number of capes, small islands, and points or headlands. The treacherous tides and rocky coast are dangerous to navigation, and to offset to some extent the hazards inherent in the swift tides among the reefs and shoals there are many buoys and lighthouses. Some of the latter, such as Cape Sable, are large and of importance to transatlantic shipping; some are small and serve mostly to guide belated local fishing boats to their home harbors. Our light is betwixt and between. This is true of its position and size as well as of its importance.

It often comes about that Morrill is not able to be home at sunset to light up, and I act as substitute lightkeeper. After the lamps have been lit, and the mechanism that revolves the light set in motion, I must stay for some time in the lantern, as we call the glass and metal enclosure that contains the light apparatus and through which the beams of the lamp are visible from the sea. This is to make certain that all is operating smoothly, since any flaw in the performance is most apt to appear when the mechanism starts.

This hour of lighting up is a time that I enjoy. I love to watch the beams of near-by lights take their places like friendly stars in the twilight. Though I know only one of the keepers, the lights themselves are old friends. Off there, about twelve miles to the west, is Seal Islands rather irregular beam; to the southwest is nothing but unbroken sea and sky, but eight miles to the southeast is Cape Sables bright white flash; not so far away and almost due east glows West Heads warm red; while nearest to us, only two miles away, is the twinkling little harbor light of Emerald Isle. Then to the north, snug and protected by the outlying capes and islands, the small fixed light of Woods Harbour glows redly.

On fine evenings these add to the beauty of sunset skies and placidly shimmering sea; but, oh, on stormy, wind-tossed nights, when the lighthouse rocks and the metal lantern vibrates like a taut wire under the rough searching fingers of the wind, they are the friendly smiles of comrades in the struggle against wind and sea, and as our lamps flash out through the murk, I am glad they are adding their bit to the forces that fight the darkness and storm. Even when fog or driving rain and snow shut away everything but the reflected beams of our own lamps, it is something to know that the other lights, like ours, still flash their messages from towers standing as sentinels, although I cannot see them.

While I watch the functioning of the light apparatus, I look seaward to the south, where the whistle buoy, a mile from the light, marks the outlying reefs of the island, for this, too, is under our supervision, and we must report to the Department of Transport if it shifts from its position or fails to utter the dismal shrieks and moans that earn its local name of the Groaner.

So here I am, a lightkeepers wife on a small island three miles from the mainland, isolated much of the year, and living under conditions that most of the country outgrew fifty years or more ago. When I stop to think of it I am as much surprised as you would be to find yourself in a similar situation, and I know Morrill often feels the same astonishment. Our three children do not share the slight sense of bewilderment that we sometimes feel. They have known no other life and are quite sure that they would want nothing different. To them, living on an island dependent on a small boat for the only communication with the rest of the world, going to school by letters and a correspondence course, exchanging most infrequent week-end visits and many letters with their little friends as their only companionship outside the family, providing their own amusement and sports, seem the most natural state of affairs in the world, and children who live otherwise are more to be pitied than blamed perhaps, but certainly not to be envied. Their chief worry is that we should be forced to change our place and mode of living.