the Prince Rupert Coast Guard that we would be visiting Egg Island that day. The Coast Guard then contacted the Egg Island lightkeepers, Ed and Carlene Carson, and passed on the message. They were expecting us, and they were very excited.
Egg Island is even more remote than Addenbroke, and almost no one ever visits. There is no safe harbour or anchorage so everyone generally just passes by. It’s a very small island in the middle of Queen Charlotte Sound and because of exposure to winter winds there is not a lot of greenery or trees growing on it. The first lighthouse there had been built in 1898 but was very badly damaged by a huge wave in 1912. They built a new foundation farther away from the water, but still not far enough! On a cold November night in 1948 the lighthouse was destroyed again by a huge rogue wave during a tremendous storm. That night the house trembled each time another wave hit. At 2 AM the lightkeeper, his wife and young son just barely managed to get out of the house and up to higher ground before a wave hit and carried off their home. They endured piercing rain, frigid temperatures and intense hunger for five days.
Shortly after the storm abated, the father attempted to row for help but he had fallen and damaged both of his elbows so he was not able to get very far. Then they saw a fishboat circling the island and the three of them climbed into the rowboat and rowed themselves to the Sunny Boy and safety at last. The crew on the Sunny Boy fed them and gave them clothes because they were still in their pyjamas. They then took the family to the hospital in Bella Bella where they were treated for various injuries and exposure. The federal government had assumed that the family of three had been washed away and did not send help to check on them! The family who had helped keep boaters safe for many years was never properly compensated for their ordeal or the loss of everything they owned. They did not continue to work as lightkeepers.
George’s dad and a friend with a nice catch of salmon caught off of Addenbroke Island. Our guests would still be fishing this area for the next thirty-eight years from the sport-fishing resort that we would build called Rivers Lodge.
Ed and Carlene helped us lift the skiff out of the water with their crane and swung it over to rest safely on the wharf and ushered us across the island to their home. It was a quick few minutes’ walk to cross the entire island. They showed us the foundation of the original lighthouse and told us why it had been destroyed so easily. Apparently when the new foundation was built in 1912, the old lighthouse was moved up onto the foundation but was never actually attached to it. Just simply plunked down on top and that was that.
We sat at the kitchen table while Carlene made lunch and we all chatted at the same time. Everyone wanted to talk, but there was so much energy in the room that it was okay and no one felt left out or shy. It wasn’t long before Ed brought out his homemade salal-berry wine. We sipped politely for a little while before he plunked a bottle down beside each person and that was the end of polite. The salal berry doesn’t taste very good just picked off the bush, but it can be turned into a great wine. Or so we thought at the time. Why, that wine was some of the best that I have ever had the pleasure of drinking! George managed to keep his wits about him just enough, and asked Ed to call the Coast Guard to pass along a message to Ray at Addenbroke that we wouldn’t be returning that day but would come back in the morning. Ed convinced George that he shouldn’t worry, that Ray or Ruth could cover his middle-of-the-night watch. I convinced George that we sure as hell couldn’t drive back to Addenbroke after we had been drinking all afternoon. It was all Ed’s fault!
We did manage to get out of bed in the morning and made our way back to the wharf. Ed lowered our boat into the water and we sadly hugged our new best friends goodbye then scrambled down the rocks to climb into the boat. The trip back to Addenbroke was much longer and more uncomfortable than the day before because there was a bit of a chop on the water that slowed us down, and our heads were still feeling the effects of all that wine.
As we got closer to Addenbroke we were suddenly travelling with a pod of huge orcas. There must have been twenty of them and I think they just happened to be going in the same direction as we were. I was startled at first then scared half to death. We all seemed to be travelling at the same speed. They kept surfacing and blowing great puffs of smelly, fishy mist and because we couldn’t speed up in our tiny boat, we couldn’t get away from them. I kept watching off the front of the boat in case one came up and we ran into it. I had no plan—I just wanted to be the first one to know if I was going to die.
The whales travelled with us for several miles and then they just seemed to melt into the ocean and disappear. When they didn’t reappear anywhere that I could see, I started to breathe a little easier and unglued my eyes from the front of the boat. I turned to George, and he called out over the engine, “Wasn’t that amazing, wasn’t that fantastic?!”
Oh yes, it was amazing to me, but deep in my heart I am a Prairie girl. About this time I was thinking a farm in Saskatchewan might be a nice place to be.
We had been back on the island for a few days when I decided to use some of the salal berries that were ripening everywhere and turn them into jelly. They taste awful and they had a funny texture but when you added a whole lot of sugar, and strained the lumps out, the flavour was like an intensely delicious blackberry sauce. Unfortunately, I was a little late picking the fruit and little white worms had gotten into the berries. As I boiled the berry and sugar mixture, a worm-filled foam formed on the top as worms floated up to the surface. I stood bent over the pot for what felt like hours, skimming the top and picking out worms. I had to stop occasionally when the salal fumes steamed up into my face and I started gagging with the memory of drinking too much salal-berry wine. Maybe the worms added to the flavour, because the salal-berry jelly that I made at Addenbroke was so good it could have won awards.
We were due to have six weeks’ holiday after being at the lighthouse almost nine months. It worked out that we would be in Vancouver through the Christmas season. I had missed being with my family the previous Christmas and couldn’t possibly miss another one. We flew off the island on the Coast Guard helicopter. What a thrill as it lifted straight up off the helicopter pad. I was surprised to see from the air that the island was completely green. Other than the few buildings on the west side, the island was lush forest. No clearings, no streams, no meadows, no wide-open valleys. No wonder we got lost! We went to Vancouver and visited our friends before I flew to Winnipeg and George went to Lake Cowichan to spend the rest of the Christmas holidays with our respective families. One afternoon in Winnipeg before New Year’s, there was a knock on my sister Marcia’s door. There was George with a big grin on his face!
We had a great big reunion hug. We missed each other so much after living together where we were practically joined at the hip, day after day, morning, noon and night for nine whole months. I made a pot of coffee and we sat in the living room telling each other everything that had happened in the last week and a half. I couldn’t believe how much I had missed him. I had trouble taking my eyes off him when he tried to show me something. I finally saw that he was holding a ring in his hand and was trying to give it to me. He asked me to marry him, and I said, “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
Lighthouse Keepers Sometimes Save Lives
We headed back to the lighthouse at the end of our holiday. George liked to say, “We had six weeks of holiday after nine months of holiday.” We got right back into the daily routine of more holiday. Since it was now mid-winter, there was no garden work for me so I spent a lot of time reading about gardening, and knitting and cooking. I looked after the chickens and wrote a lot of letters documenting our life. I didn’t get bored with the routine, there always seemed to be something interesting to read, learn about or do. I became fascinated with food and studied all the cookbooks that I could get my hands on. George was my very willing guinea pig and was happy to try anything that I put in front of him. There were a few hits: roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, carrot cake, Manhattan clam chowder. There were also a few misses, like canned-salmon soufflé. “I feel like all I’m eating
