One Day at Cap L’Aigle

                                   



We had punched through heavy ice from Cape Anguille NL to Forestville,
PQ, on the North Shore of the St. Lawrence, discharged some product
there and was now pumping off the remainder of the load at Cap-au-
L’aigle, before proceeding up river to Quebec City to load again. The
classic ennui of life on a product carrier in the Gulf of St. Lawrence
in the winter.



I turned in after breakfast, read for a while, and drifted off to
sleep. At ten hundred hrs. A rap came on my cabin door and the chief
stuck his head in saying “Get up, second, let’s ‘ead into town and see
what’s bloody going on! “



Well Graham wasn’t too bad a guy, so I thought I would accommodate him
and drag my carcass out of the sack and go with him. Besides, I hadn’t
been in Murray Bay since 1969., so it would be interesting to see what
changes if any, had occurred.



We went down the gangway and up to the office and asked the agent if he
could drive us into town. No problem; but like every Quebecois I have
ever driven with, he was anxious to impress with his driving edibility
and mores the performance of his car, ( A Chevy Nova with a 396 ci mill
under the hood.)



It’s about four miles from Cap A L’Aigle into Murray Bay, a very hilly
road with a lot of ess curves, Graham was in the back seat of the coupe,
and he only spoke once, in a small voice to ask how much farther.



The agent dropped us at the mall, and asked what time we wanted to be
picked up. It was agreed that he would return at 1230hrs. We strolled
down the mall and came to the lacquer store. We entered the hallowed
precincts of the same.



Graham took a cart------------ I felt that my purchases would not
warrant such capacity, and I walked over, pulled a forty ouncer of
alcohol off the shelf, told Graham I’ d meet him in the mall taverne,
and after a bit he arrived all laden with brown bags that clinked and
sloshed when he sat them down on one of the other two chairs at the
table. We was in our second beer when the agent showed up and gave us
another simulation of Le Mans, while going back to the ship.



When we got on board, we went to Graham’s cabin, sat back in the
leather arm chairs that made up some of the day room furniture. Graham
deposited he sloshing, clinking brown bags on his desk, looked at me and
said, “ I say old chap, lets have a drink before lunch.! “ I said I
concurred with his idea, and would head for the galley forthwith to
procure a jug of orange juice and some ice. By the time of my return,
Graham had his bar opened and two eight ounce tumblers sitting on the
coffee table. “ You  didn’t buy much, then did you;  What did you get.?? “



Well I told him that I had bought a forty of a local brew, and would he
like to have a drink of it. “ Oh yes, second, always game for a new
brew, wherever I go.!” So I passed him the bottle of alcool, hoping
against hope that he wouldn’t take it out of its  covert hiding place.
He obliged me by pulling the bag down over the neck and unscrewing the
cap. “ Pour yourself a good one Graham,” I said solicitously, and he
did; about three fingers of it.



I took the bottle and poured myself about half an ounce, we said
cheers, and laid ‘er back. Graham allowed it had some bite, but went
down well. “Have another one Graham,” I said, and I was gratified to see
him pour a third of a glass and top it up with OJ.



Well, by the time he got to the bottom of that one, he was pretty well
sloshed; “ I said, What did you get Chief,” indicating the bags on his
desk. “Oh, a little of this and that you know.”  “ Do you like gin, then
second.” ? I said yes, I could handle a drink of gin, if there was no
Capt. Morgan around. Graham rummaged round in the bags and came up with
a bottle of Beef Eater’s, from which I pour myself a good stiff drink.
Graham’s alcool was long gone so he took the gin and poured a good
triple, added the mix; took two sips, got up and bowed and asked if I
would excuse him; “ I’m feeling too well, you know; think I’ ll have a
little lay down.” 



I headed back to the galley to see if I could coerce the cook into
getting me some dinner. Graham went to bed. When I went on watch at
1600hrs, the door of his day room was open, and the bedroom door as
well, and I could see he was lying face down on the bunk with his feet
protruding over the end the bunk; toes toward the deck. When I came off
watch at 2000 hrs., nothing had changed; the toes still were pointed
downwards. I continued to my cabin, my heart filled with misgivings and
the awful thought that I had poisoned my Chief Engineer with good old
Quebec alcool.



The next morning when I went on watch, I saw that he had moved one
foot; an indication that he still lived and breathed. When I came up at
0800 hrs., his day room door was closed. He made an appearance at supper
that evening, as we were punching through heavy ice on our way to Quebec
City. Graham declared to the skipper and the other assembled officers
that I was a dangerous individual, and that no one should ever accept
any drink proffered by me unless it was coffee.



Graham and I got shifted to different ships, and when we would meet by
chance in St. John, he would never fail to mention that winter morning
at Cap-au-L’aigle

Lost on the Twenty-one Barrens

I wasn't aware of the search, or that anyone was astray, until Victor Luddington called me when he got home. It was about nine in the evening and he had just returned from the east road, (Country Harbour Cross Roads to West Cooks Cove ) Where he had been on a search party for Merrill Latham, who went astray late that afternoon while hunting with his Dad ( Harry ) and brothers Allan and Calvin.

I had just returned home from the store............before the age of social media, news didn't travel so rapidly as it now does. Anyway, Vic ran it by me, and said with my experience huntng the Twenty one Barrens he said he thought I would be an asset to the search team at daylight, He also said that himself and Mac Martin, Beverly Manthorne's Dad, were close enough to shout to Merrill that evening , but couldn't reach him due to rough going and the fact that their batteries were going flat. Vic said he figured that he could go directly to Merrill in the morning. It was agreed that everyone take a change of clothes for Merrill, because that afternoon and throughout the night, there was scattered showers, and the temperature dropped; a typical fall night.

We got out to the Barrens road when it was just breaking day. The R.C.M.P. were on hand, saw that all were competent and wisely kept his mouth shut. Keith Luddington and me got talking and I told Keith that I planned to go in to the east of Round Lake, and told him that I had talked this over with Vic on the way up that morning from DH, and he thought it would be a good plan because we didn't knew if Merrill would try and travel during the night.

I must make an explanatory interjection here; Keith's Aunt Phoebe, was Merrill's step-mother and was my Aunt by her marriage to my Uncle, Bayfield Crooks. When she was widowed by my Uncles death, she married Harry Latham.

When it got light enough to see to walk, Victor put the muzzle of his 30/06 in the air and fired one shot. A moment later Merrrill answered with a single shot; we rejoiced knowing Merrill had made it through the night. Victor took a bearing on the sound of Merrill's shot, and we were off.

Keith and me went down the road ( main ) a couple of hundred yards and turned north onto the Barrens. Victor had told me were they had left the evening before, and I told Keith that it was an overgrown chopping, with young firs so thick that it would task a scared rabbit to make it through.

Keith and me travelled hard, and before long were abeam of Round Lake, and in a few more minutes could smell the pungent aroma of wood smoke; Mac Martin, Cecil Smith, (Cross Roads) and Victor had found Merrill, ( luckily, it was a very still morning, and they could hear his weakened voice from a distance off. He was down in the young firs, and would have died where he fell the night before had not help arrived.

Mac and Cecil fell a nearby pine ram-pike, while Victor plied Merrill with hot tea from a Thermos, loaded with sugar. With two crack woods men, both of whom had cut their teeth on a Swede saw and double bitted axe, it wasn't long before Mac and Cecil had a roaring fire going. I believe that this was about the time that you and I arrived, wasn't it, Keith.? The three of them had gotten Merrill into dry clothes, a bit of grub in him and he was good to go.

Mac took a slant for the west side of Round Lake, he was heading for the road. that runs to the back of the barrens and crosses the foot of Long Lake.

We made the western shore of Round Lake. The water is shallow there and a fine sandy bottom. This made for great walking and we made good time, marvelling at the myriad fresh water clam shells that were visable. After walking the shoreline for a way, we came to a fast flowing brook, which ran into the lake. I had wondered why Mac was wearing hip waders; now I knew, he undertook to piggy back us all across the brook. I had grave doubts when it came to Keith and me, without doubt the heaviest, but he made it, no sweat, and we commenced the trek again, and before long could see the hydro line which ran parallel to the East Road. About ten minutes later we were out to the cars, and the congrats and sincerely thank yous went around. Allan and Calvin loaded their brother in their car, and left for Seal Harbour.



November 01/ 2015

The Dark Room

With our smart phones, tablets, dash board cameras and other digital devices, we all have the ability to visually record anything that strikes our fancy. I heard a guy say on TV the other nite that between SD chips and various hard drives he estimated that he had 50000 pictures, give or take. Bear with me and we'll go back to how it was back in the day.

My sibs, Willis and Ardath were intrigued by photography when they were young and had many hours free time at their disposal on the light, Willis converted the closet in his bedroom to a darkroom so they could develop their own pictures.

I can see the closet now, as it was when Carolyn and me were on the light in 1960. The last time I was in it was the day the Guptil's arrived to take over. The walls and ceiling was painted departmental buff, the bench that Willis had built was still in it's place on the northeast wall and the shelves for supplies was on the northwest wall, on one's left as you passed through the door and the hanger for the kerosene lantern with it's red globe was still in place.

I stood for a moment, my arms full of our clothes, my mind going back to the days gone by when as a child I was permitted to watch magic being made in that  closet, by the eerie light of the battered lantern. I gently closed the door, knowing well that I would never see the Dark Room again.  But memories still live on, kept alive in part by some of the black and white images, reproduced in the archives of this web-site. Many of these pics were taken by Ardie and Willis with their twin 120 box cameras. These cameras could be purchased at T. Eaton in those times for about $3.95.

War was looming in Europe, and in 1938 my big bro felt the call of the north country, and left the island for the goldfields of Ontario. He soon obtained work, at the MacIntyre Mine I believe,  and shortly after there came a package in the mail addressed to Ardie and I, which, when opened revealed two brand new Kodak Brownie 620 box cameras and a note of admonition from Willis to keep up the good work; don't let the dark room get lonely. At the time he bought the Brownies he also treated himself to a German made Rolleicord 620, with dual reflex focus and an integral flash shoe. A work of high technology for the time.

The war came, to our back door as it were, and Ardie took her Brownie Kodak 620 and hit the trail for Halifax, where she was fortunate to find a job with Maritime Photo Engravers. I remember her taking Dad and me   on a tour of her studio, which was in the old Herald building on Argyle St. Her studio was just across the hall from the rooms of the redoubtable cartoonist, Bob Chambers, who portrayed the ' Little Man ' so well. No colour film in those days, and she did a lot of tinting in oils for vartous clients while employed with them. Hanging in the trailer is one she gave me of the picture that she took of the light from across the pond ( which can be more likened to a puddle today ) she tinted this with oils, about circa 1945.

She was delighted to show off all the equipment that she used on a daily basis, but I think her favourite was the big old enlarger, and I remember her saying that her and Willis often used to dream of owning one for their photography endeavors.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
Our trip to the Argyle St. studio was in August 1945, when Dad took me to Halifax to go through U190, tied up at pier 21. We stayed with Uncle John and Aunt Florence, who lived at 151B Walnut St. at the time. Sometimes when I' m driving out Quinpool Rd. I hang a right and have a check to see that everything is okay.

It's said that we are to some degree a product of our gene pool; keep up the good work, Shutterbug. !

DGC

On The Dock

It was a strange trip from start to end. Leaving St. John with the tow
we had on board one new deck hand and a psychopathic person who called
himself a cook.

The new deckie, whom the mate sarcastically referred to ( even to his
face ) as AB, had never been on the water before in his life, save in a
canoe on Lake Muckamuck when he was a boy scout at the age of ten. He
was a business man from the Port City, and a successful one at that. We
regulars on the tug would lie awake at night trying to figure out what
the hell he was doing here. He turned out to be an excellent shipmate.

While we were still making ready for the tow, the cook straightened me
out, and the chief as well, and made no bones of telling us that if we
didn’t mend our ways, he would proceed to alter our countenances to such
a degree that our own mothers wouldn’t recognize us. Since he stood six
foot four and was broad accordingly, we took him at his word and behaved
ourselves.The tow was an old and tired Laker. */St. Lawrence Prospector/* had
been cut off at the engine room and the forward end was bound for the
breakers at Brownsville, TX. We trimmed down along the Eastern Seaboard
of the US, staying inside the effects of the Gulf Stream, and eventually
made the towers of Miami Beach. By now all us regular types were
spending all our off watch time laying around on deck in the sun,
drinking beer, a beverage that was _not_ in short supply. I had a unit
air conditioner in my cabin that with the front grill off held  six
bottles neatly.

The skipper was a Brit and spoke with a proper British accent. But he
was no match for the cook from Whitney Pier, who would go charging up to
the wheelhouse when the tug would start to roll, and tell the hapless
captain that he better make her stop it……..Or else. ! We couldn’t see
what all the fuss was about, because it was too hot to eat; by the time
we got in the Florida Straits the temperature in the engine room was
running at 130F.

We towed the hulk of the Laker slowly in across the Gulf until one fine
morning just after dawn we passed the lighthouse built on stilts that
marks the entrance of the Brownville ships channel at Port Isabel, the
man made channel that leads in to Brownsville, seventeen miles from the
open waters of the Gulf We slipped our tow to the tugs from the Breakers
yard and continued to a berth down town.As is always the case,
the engine room was so backed up with
maintenance that couldn’t be done underway, that neither the chief or I
got ashore. Instead we stayed and sweated it out in the 120F heat, all
the while taking care to keep ourselves well hydrated with beer. The
skipper, mate and three deckhands arrived back after lunch and the
psycho cook came a little later. The skipper ordered the pilot and we
sailed for Fort Lauderdale about 1600hrs,

We romped along through the startling blue waters of the Gulf;
unfettered now and free of the tow the tug churned the water to a white
froth as she steamed toward the Dry Tortugas. More tanning and beer
drinking sessions, until we arrived in Lauderdale on a Thursday afternoon.
The dry-dock was owned by Tracor Inc. It was a syncrolift, a unique
type of dry dock that lifts the ship vertically with about one thousand
small reduction geared electric motors placed along it’s perimeter. We
tied up at he approach dock, until the dock master and his crew got the
keel blocks in place for the */Birch/*. A scuba diver went in the water
and stayed under log enough to explore the Romanche Trench. When he
surfaced he was savage. He yanked off his face mask and cursed the dock
master up in heaps, all the time averring the whatever the hull plan
they had given him was for in was definitely not for the tug that was
here to be lifted. He was so irate that he swallowed a couple of good
big gulps of water; our cook said he would like to give him an attitude
adjustment.We finally got lifted when it was found that the office in St. John had
sent Tracor the hull plan for the */Irving Miami/*. The yard crew hooked
up shore power and water to our fire mains. AB went ashore and got
himself a beach front suite rented a high end car and sent for Mrs. AB
to join him.Things were going along at the frenetic pace that seems to be the norm
in every dry dock in the world; ship yard fitters of every discipline
wanting to know this or that from the chief or myself as they went at
the task of repairing or overhauling whatever was on the list. The
majority of the yard gang was Cubans; some very limited in the English
language. Transport Canada had an inspector on hand who had flown down
from SJ. He had no knowledge whatever of Espnol. The Lloyds inspector
was however, bilingual.

About 0130hrs the following morning, the mate, the skipper ( there
 because he couldn’t sleep ) and I were on the forecastle head. The mate
and I were running out both anchor chains for re-marking. The mate was
running the windlass and I was down beneath the wildcat, watching for
the almost invisible paint links as they came up the spurling pipes.
Every time a mark came up, I would dab a slap of white paint on it for
easier reference later.  A  Cuban  driving a Bull Moose was towing the
chains out along the dock, in loops.Over the starboard side,
just about abeam of where we were, eleven
Cubans were putting up staging for a welder. Their task was just about
complete, the welder was on hand, ready to start; There was a lot of
laughter and bantering in Spanish; he was about to weld a connection on
the overboard discharge for the sewage tank. This would be piped to a
holding tank on the floor of the dock. They should have gotten at it
earlierDave, the skipper, standing near the starboard bulwark, yawned and
stretched and said he thought he would turn in; that he could probably
sleep now. Then almost in the same breathe, he said, “ Ow, I believe I
smell s..t ! “
A cold hand reached out from the place where the demons and dragons
live and grabbed my heart. I lurched to my feet and run down the boat
deck for the engine room. I got to the sewage plant just as the running
light winked out. I grabbed a stanchion for support, as I contemplated,
in fast forward, all the implications of this fiasco. After I caught my
breathe I went back on deck and peeked out around the break deck and up
along the starboard side. What met my eyes was even worse than anything
my imagination could have devised. Eleven dock workers and one welder
were standing on the planks of the stage, two lifts up, running their
fingers through their hair and slatting it on the dock below, gasping
for breathe,  trying to cope with the emission of three hundred gallons
of raw human waste.I climbed the ladder to the boat deck; knees shaking
so badly that they threatened to withdraw their support and let me fall
face first on the deck to await my execution. When I reached the forecastle head, I
immediately learned something that heretofore I had not known; our
captain had a perverted sense of humor. He was lying on the deck, on his
back, beating a tattoo on the plates with his heels, all the while
guffawing loudly whilst the tears streamed from his eyes.The old
Lunenburger mate on the other hand, couldn’t see any humor in
it at all. He looked at me with his rheumy eyes and said softly, “ I
tinks we’re in big trouble, you. “ I couldn’t have agreed more.I looked
cautiously over the bulwark to see if the Harbour Authority
had arrived yet and saw the yard workers spraying each other with a
garden hose.  When they considered themselves fit to travel, they all
hied off to the showers, appearing back after about a half hour all
spruced up in clean dry clothes, and immediately fell to cleaning up the
dock and staging, leaving it spotless. The welder climbed up and welded
the fitting on the ships side, and while he was at that task, the other
guys brought the holding tank and piped it all up.The chief was ashore so
I couldn’t advise him of the imminent incarceration of his second engineer, so we went back to sticking out the chains, while we awaited the arrival of the Florida cops
 ( CSI Miami) The skippered had recovered after about fifteen minutes,
and declared it was the funniest thing he had ever seen in all his years of sailing
the oceans of the world, and headed off for the bunk, clutching his
belly, which was very sore due the convulsions he had had, while
thrashing around the deck by the anchor windlass in paroxysm of mirth.
We talked it over at breakfast the next morning. The chief was on board
now, and he said that he thought that I had closed the overboard
discharge valve on the tank; I countered by saying I thought that he
closed it. Too much assumption going into a drydock. We were still sure
there would be hell to pay yet, and decided to wait it out. We never
heard a word about it to this day, and came to the conclusion that the
Cubans figured that the gringo crew of the tug had dumped on
them…………..literally.

That afternoon the cook tackled the mate about the way he had put up a
ladder, and it took the combined efforts of me and the chief to
physically restrain the mate from going at the cook and getting himself
killed. The cook quit after we got back to SJ and we threw a party to
celebrate that event in the bar of the Admiral Beattie.

AB said he was glad to have made the trip with us; said he had learned
a lot. My wife and I ran into him later at the Rebecca Cohn. He said he
had moved to Halifax. I see that his wife still sells real estate in HRM.
And now you’ve heard the story of how an old great lakes freighter got
to the breakers yard at Brownville, and how the crew of the tug that
towed her there escaped the chain gang in Florida for the rankest kind
of pollution.

*DGC*



*Sydney**, April 2, 2007*

Night Run

The last year we were keepers on Liscombe Island Light & Fog Alarm, we decided that Carol, my wife, should  take the children and go ashore, the reason being that we had given Darren, our oldest boy correspondence in grade 1, but he didn’t take well to this regimen after being with me on the tractor hauling drummed fuel and other petroleum products used at the station, so after lengthy discussion it was decided that Carol take all three kids home to Drum Head and move in with my mom, despite the fact that we owned a home in this village.

This course of action left me alone on the station with my assistant and his wife. Anyway, I wasn’t completely alone; I had the very excellent company of my two Labrador retrievers. By this point in my tenure as keeper at Liscombe, I had suffered sore from the lack of a proper boat to travel to and from the island ( supplied by the Dept. of Transport) and had become so frustrated with the situation  that I had a real surf skiff built by Roy Levy of Sober Island Passage. Keith Guptill, keeper at Country( Green ) Island had one on his station and I was completely impressed by the sea keeping qualities of this sixteen-foot skiff; so Roy got my order.

Separated as I was from my family that last year, it fell that I used any and every conceivable excuse to get ashore and drive to Drum Head using the torturous winding dirt road that wended it’s way through the nine mile woods as a short cut. Of course, I  was always loathe to leave and go back to the island, so sometimes it would mean a trip outbound in the night, which held no terrors for me; I had complete confidence in my boat, the Johnson outboard that powered her and in my ability to navigate safely in any reasonable conditions day or night.

One Friday in February  ‘ 67,  I got the tractor out of the garage just as the sun was just coming up, in preparation for a trip ashore with Drum Head as my ultimate destination. From the time my family had moved ashore it had been my custom whenever the weather permitted to take Darren, our oldest,  out with me on the light for the weekend.

When I got over to the landing the morning was what the old fellows here in the village would have called a sea turn day-------the precursor of a storm. Patches of drift ice clotted the water between the Gravel Point and the southern side of Hemlow’s Island as well as to the east, toward the Tobacco Ledges, which are situated on the eastern side of Gegogin Harbour. Along the eastern shore of the island, Old Squaws could be heard, talking raucously to each other while the flock engaged in diving to feed on small mollusks in the shallow water out from the beach.

I shoved the boat down the slip, told my two Labradors I’d see them later, and took off. I thought there might be a bit of ice in Little Liscombe but it was clear, so I landed in my usual spot on Nathan Croft’s slip and hauled the skiff up; stopped by Nathan’s trap shed, where he was mending lobster traps, had a little yarn with him and went across the road to where Hitler’s Revenge sat basking in the bright morning sun. the night’s accumulation of rime now giving way on the windshield and slowly sliding down the glass as it melted.

First stop was Jean and Fred Bakers’ to pick up my mail, even though the P.O. wasn’t open yet due to the early hour, Jean was happy to accommodate me by going in for my mail. Next stop was Scotty Fraser’s  to fill the bug’ s tank with gas,  which if my memory serves me well, was .48 cents per gallon! After a visit there with Scot and the customer’s that were standing around chatting, we hit the road for DH  arriving about ten o’clock and spent an enjoyable day visiting with my family and around the trap sheds on the water front, where trap mending was in full swing. Everyone averred that a no’ east snowstorm was eminent, and “ You better hightail it back to that island before it catches you on the water !”  Now I considered myself a peer of the late Rube Hornstein when it came to forecasting weather, and yes, we were in for a snowstorm but not before late evening.

As usual I didn’t get away until well after supper, but the evening was still quite fine with just a zephyr out of the northeast. The sky was completely overcast by now and it was plain to see that the eastern quadrant of the low wasn’t too far off the coast,  that the snow would start at any time now..
We made Liscombe in an hour (Hitler’s Revenge was okay as far as holding the road was concerned) with Darren singing, happy to be going out to spent the weekend with me and the dogs for whom I had made a set of harness so they could pull him on a small toboggan.

Reached Nathan’s  slip,  piled our stuff in the bow of the skiff, flashed up the Johnson and took off, steering a course through the stygian blackness that would take us a berth clear of Rat Cove Point on the north east corner of Hemlow’ s  Island. We had traversed about half this leg of our journey, when with a resounding crackling crunch the boat struck ice; Freshwater ice! Newly formed freshwater ice is colourless on the water and impossible to see in darkness. This ice had drifted out with the falling tide during the day and filled Murdoch’s Cove in Little Liscombe. Now with the freshening wind out of the northeast, it was drifting out toward Rat Cove Point and had formed a barrier to our passage.
Liscombe harbour has sufficient input of freshwater from Liscombe River, Gaspereaux Brook and the small brook that empties into Spanish Ship Bay  to cause serious build up of freshwater ice on the harbour surface. Fresh water, lacking the density of seawater rests on top the latter freezing in sheets such as one would find on a lake. This freshwater ice is hard and can be very sharp when broken and a wooden hulled boat can be cut through in an amazingly short period  when steaming  in these conditions.

I immediately took the way off the boat and considered my options. It didn’t take long to decide to return to Little Liscombe, so I backed the skiff out of the ice that held her, and got her turned around. Heading back from whence we came, we only went about one hundred meters when we were beset with ice again. I realized that we were in a      ‘ bay ‘ in the ice field and that our return course was blocked off.

Getting the boat into open water again, I steered south west, for about five minutes, then hauled on for Archie Baker’s Point, running near the shore as I dared, I kept on and reached Nathan slip in Little Liscombe Cove, where we hauled the skiff up and tied her down and once more piled our gear back in the beetle and commenced the drive back to Drum Head.

The snow started when we reached Cochran Hill and by the time we made it to the CrossRoads, you could say it was a blizzard. Made it down to Goldboro and picked up Audie Pinkham just north of were the Gas Plant road goes in now. I can’t remember now why he was walking but his car must have broken down. Anyway we drove him down to Coddles Harbour and returned to Drum Head, by now Darren had decided that it was past his bedtime, and had gone to sleep in the back seat. I decided there was too much snow in my driveway so I parked down in front of Harry Hodgson’ s, woke Darren, who took umbrage at this rude awakening and started to slog up the driveway through the snow, and burst screaming in through the kitchen door, beating me by at least two lengths.
Mom was sitting in her Bass River rocker in front of the kitchen range and her startled scream blended with Darren’s wailing. She thought we had been in an accident, because time wise, we should have been in the dwelling house on Liscombe hours ago.

Getting caught off the station was tantamount to treason in the government’s all seeing eye, so it was necessary to call the duty officer in Dartmouth and report yourself derelict in your duty ( no answering machines in those days) Depending on who was duty officer, most times one could get away with a verbal blast, but other guys would write you up, and there e would be a memo in your next monthly report.

Believe me folks when I say; There was no life like it!!

Seanachie

My Western Shore

                                         
Her ridges are now aflame; painted by Nature from her own palette,
Of green and gold and yellow, and scarlet to bedeck the maple trees
Where in the sky ravens voices can be heard in harsh quartet,
And Quince’s North Lake's azure waters are ruffled by the breeze.

Sitting on the Look Out Rock above the Mount Brook ford.
Across the Still Water huckleberry bushes shine crimson in the sun,
Around the pools out in the bogs, pitcher plants seem as tiny gourds,
Shy deer come down with questing nose, to drink from Creek Brook Run.

Mount Misery stands in stark relief against the verdant shore,
It tells a tale of despair and hope, of hunger and privation,
Of men who looked outward to the sea for the ships that would bring more,
Food and supplies for the Loyalists here who helped to forge our nation.

The rain dark'd waters lap the gravel on the shore of Dead Man’s Beach,
And form a foam that clots and blows into the beach peas vine,
A sombre aura lingers here memories of death by drowning along the reach,
Is it the curse of a Mikq  Maq turned from the door as the Nor’ east blizzard whined?

It was good to lay in your bunk at night, while the stories went around,
And a wee camp mouse, paws clasped on breast seemed to listen in awe,
The crack of dry birch in the old camp stove was the only other sound,
Between the pictures painted in words; things that the Old One saw.

Sleep would come and the words trailed off, and you could hear ere you slept,
The distant roar of a west bound flight flying the Goshen Beam,
Then silence reigned o’er the camp at last, you could hear the mouse as he crept,
Seeking the crumbs he hoped had been dropped and lay in the floor boards seams.

From the Head to Fenton’s Ridge and back I’ve  known her mystic way,
 I’ve dreamed of her as I sailed the foam, voyaging to foreign lands,
My beautiful shore with her wooded slopes that lies across the Bay,
I hear her call me to come once more, and commune on her granite strand.

Seanachie

My Hero

Date: 27 March 2006 12:49




My Hero


Now he wasn't huge or imposing in size,
As he trod the pathway of life,
But a giant he seemed when I was three,
As I walked along at his side,
Absorbing each utterance that came from his lips,
My dad was a hero to me.

He would tell me tales of days on the Banks,
Where the bitter winds rage and howl,
Or of great bull moose back of Fenton' s Ridge,
That came to the birch horn's call.
On the couch in the kitchen; telling me yarns,
My dad was a hero to me.

Learning to use a needle while mending a herring net,
Under his critical eye; learning to box the compass,
Only eleven years in age,  but steering an arrow straight course,
Many the things he taught me, has stood me all through life,
Whenever I met with a challenge, and things were bad as could be,
I'd remember the maxims he taught me and.........
My dad was a hero to me.

And when the time of parting came, ( and parting comes to us all )
He didn't wail and whimper, nor turn his face to the wall,
We talked of all the good times; of trips we had made to the camp,
And of the trip to Newfoundland, the trip that would never be,
Of the mornings he crouched in the North Point blind with old Rex by his side,
When I look on his stone where he rests on the hill near the place where he was born,
I think of the kind of a man he was;.........And he's still a hero to me. !

DGC

Medivac

Back in the days of manned lighthouses, the threat of sickness or injury was ever present in every adult’s mind. Before the radiotelephones were installed toward the end of WWII, communication, especially in winter was virtually impossible.
1929 was a winter of extreme ice  conditions……the ocean froze over well out beyond the harbours and bays, making transportation by small boat none existent.
A keeper by the name Misener passed away that winter on Liscombe Island, and besieged as they were by ice, it fell to his young son Charles, to lay out his fathers body in the base room of the tower, until a break came in the ferocious cold and he (Charles) could get ashore to seek assistance from the people of the village to remove his father’s remains to the mainland for burial.
I took over that station from Charlie in 1963, and he told me he never quite recovered from the trauma of passing his father’s corpse hourly throughout the nights as he went up the tower stairs to check on the light, and wind the clockwork mechanism that made the light revolve. I believe it was twenty-nine days before a break came in the weather. 
My dad and his family were on very short rations on Green Island that same cold snap. It taught my dad that when on an offshore island…….lay in enough staples to see you through the winter, and particularly, flour.
This narrative is meant to show the reader what can occur in the way of illness, and how quickly it can happen, and to show the dedicated response to keepers in distress by the fishing communities that depended so much upon the lights and the untiring vigilance of the keepers for their safety while at sea, before the advent of electronic technology on the scale that exists today.


The southeast gale had blown itself out and as is the pattern had veered completely around the compass, and now was blowing with equal velocity from the north and had turned cold. Snow was falling, and when viewed through the beams shining from the tower, seemed like a horizontal mantle of white, that coalesced constantly in the stronger gusts, that howled around the eaves of the keepers dwelling as if singing a dirge for the fourteen fishermen who had lost their lives in the Canso trawler  “Acadia Seahawk” on the first of that month; December 1964.
We invited my assistant over for supper, we had fried deer steak, mashed potatoes, turnips……..the works.
After the meal he excused himself and said that he must go home and get some rest, as he would be going on watch at twelve midnight.
About ten minutes or so after his departure, my two Labradors started to take on at the kitchen door and when I went to investigate the cause of their irrational behavior I opened the outside door to find my assistant, Wilfred, lying in a fetal position on my doorstep.
“ Whats wrong? “ I asked the writhing form that lay before me. “ Kidney stone “ was his reply. “ Are you sure? “  “ Yes, I’ve had them before”
Now, I knew before I ever started to the sun porch where the radiotelephone was installed that there wasn’t a hope in hell of getting him air lifted that night, because of weather conditions, but I had to go through the formality of it.
The federal government in its wisdom had the bureaucrats devise a questionnaire that keepers had to complete when an accident or illness occurred on a station. The radio coast station operator then telephoned a dedicated medical facility in his area to pass this information along so some doctor could make a diagnosis (and a decision) as to whether or not an evacuation was warranted.
The operator at VCS Chebucto Head and I talked it over. I gave him our current weather conditions, And we concurred that an evacuation by air would be out of the question, so I asked him to advise the duty officer  at Dartmouth Base of the situation and also to call Murray Baker on land line and ask him to tune his all wave (marine band) radio to my transmitting frequency.
After this was done, and the operator told me that Murray had his ears on, I started transmitting directly to Murray and told him the Wilfred had suffered a kidney stone attack and would it be possible for him to bring Dr. Silver to the station and try and get Wilfred ashore after the medication took hold.
The operator came back to me and told me that he would advise when Murray was leaving the wharf; as soon as he could get a crew together and locate Dr. Silver and get him to Liscombe.
After the telephone session I went over to Wilfred’s ( he was at his house then) he was in excruciating pain and went into denial when I told him help would be arriving, probably within the hour.
“ Who would come out here for me on a night like this? “ he said, “ And besides, they don’t know me”  ( he was from northern NB. “ We’ll see”  I replied, just as Carol came to the door to tell me that “ Sir Wm. Alexander” was calling our station and was on standby waiting for my answer.
The Alexander had been notified that an emergency was in place at Liscombe, and her master wanted to know the situation as far as landing was concerned ( by water} I told him that conditions wouldn’t support a barge landing but if he had a dory on board it could probably be achieved. I added that local help was on the way, but that I would appreciate him coming in and standing by. He, at this time was a bit better than an hour away.
While the Alexander and I were talking, VCS broke to advise me that Murray eas  about to leave the wharf and that he planned to drop Dr. Silver on the Gravel Point at the north end of the island and near the slipway, and then proceed out to the light and attempt a landing in a double dory and evacuate Wilfred at the cove beneath the light.
I went up the hill above the station where the tractor garage was located and backed out the Farmall and started across the island to the landing site, the driving snow partially blinding me as I drove into it.
I reached the point just as Murray running lights were showing through the snow as he swung down along the back of Hemlow’s Island toward the point. 
Murray rowed Dr. Silver ashore himself, because he wanted to confer with me as to landing conditions at the light. When the good doctor alighted from the dory, I said, “ Where’s your bag doctor? “ thinking that in the heat of the moment that he may have left it on board Murray’s boat. “ Got everything I need right in here” he answered, tapping the breast pocket of his parka, so with him standing on the draw bar, we made our way back to the station while Murray steamed around the point on his way to the light.
On hearing of our troubles at the light Murray had made three phone calls; one to Dr. Silver and one each to his neighbors, Johnny Tibbo and Ernest Rudolf, both of whom were well skilled and proficient in the art of handling of a dory.
Fred, Murray’s father, was harbour pilot for Liscombe. Most of the traffic he served consisted of Irving tankers, because Liscombe was a storage depot and had a tank farm as did Goldboro, and petro products were brought in by ship. For boarding in winter Fred owned a halibut dory. One of the larger of the dory family. It was this noble craft that Murray had in tow that night.
Dr. Silver and I reached the light and he immediately injected the suffering assistant, “ In ten minutes you’ ll feel like you could fly ashore.”  He told him, as he administered the narcotic.
Murray was laying by outside the cliffs below the light, and as per prearranged signal, when Wilfred was pain free,  I gave Murray three flashes from my torch   (you can see I’ve Associated with too many Brit engineers) as the signal that he should send Johnny and Ern in to pick up Wilfred and his personal angel of mercy, Dr Silver, and take the whole works home to the wharf.
The Alexander was on the scene now, lying in mid-stream outside the Mackerel Rocks with two searchlights trained on the activities taking place under the cliffs. Murray took his boat around to where the cliffs below the light make some lee with the wind from the north and dropped the dory. With two pairs of oars, Johnny and Ern had no problem bringing the dory in to the cliffs. She made a beautiful picture, coming toward the cliffs, brightly lit by the search lights of the Alexander, her yellow hull personifying all the great legends pertaining to the Grand Banks dory.
When the dory struck the cliffs I grabbed the bow becket to hold her stern to the sea; Ern bellowed, above the roar of the surf, “ Wilfred, “  “Addie said if you come ashore without Spuddy, it won’t go well for you.” Addie was his wife who was ashore at their place in Goldenville on some business, and Spuddy was her very neurotic miniature Schnauzer, which had already been placed in my care by Wilfred; the end result being that Ern and Johnny had to back off and ‘ lay on their oars’ while the dog got dressed in suitable gear in which to make such an arduous ocean voyage. He had a different outfit for each day of the week.
Safely on board and with the dory towing astern, Murray drove her for the wharf. The Alexander shut down the illumination which was more blinding than helpful, turned her bow seaward, blew a long blast in salute on her whistle and continued her voyage down the coast.
I garaged the tractor, walked back to the house and rewarded myself with a well deserved drink of rum.

          Epilogue

This was Murray’s second medical evacuation from Liscombe Light. He and his father took Ida, Charlie’s wife off after she sustained very serious burns, when, clothed completely in synthetics, the hem of her dress ignited when a baffling wind blew it into a fire they had going in the yard. She lived to tell me all about it……..a shocking story.
Johhny Tibbo walked hand in hand with death during the sinking of the halibut schooner “ Maureen and Michael “ a year or so later. The giant seas generated by a winter storm broke the little schooner and Chelsea Miles, her skipper, Johnny and the rest of the crew, fought like demons for twenty six hours, bailing with five gallon pails, to keep her afloat until the US Coast Guard took them off the sinking vessel by swimming a Zodiac to and from the wreck. This had such a post traumatic effect on Johnny that he could never bring himself to go to the Banks in winter ever again.

Seanachie