Episode 93 - Green Island Lighthouse, British Columbia

0:00 hi everybody i'm emily and i'm vince and this is the lighthouse lowdown we're back who am i even talking to what are we even doing where are we so weird so unusual we're in studio number four oh no i think it's like six how do you say that there's been revisions Oh, I don't count revisions. I count full location change. So first was Jarboe. Second was Cambridge. Third was down south. Yeah. Fourth is 98. Yeah. Studio 98. Well, maybe we shouldn't tell people where we live.

0:50 We live, our address is exactly, no, I'm just kidding. In view of a lighthouse. But yeah, there's a lot has happened in the approximately seven months, almost exactly seven months since we last recorded. Sorry to all of our listeners. Thank you for checking in and sticking with us because we did promise that we would be back. Yeah. However, our promise was that we'd be back very soon. And that was a lie. So just real brief for the listeners. I talked about the Edmund Fitzgerald. You were not feeling well. Sorry. And then we got married. Yes. Hold on. Our last.

1:34 Yeah. Got to learn those keys again. Our last episode was the Christmas episode, Newport Harbor. For real? Yes. And then I did Green Island before that. So you're thinking that you participated recently and that's not true. You weren't feeling good. Maybe that was the bridal shower. Oh, yes. It was the bridal shower. Living with the in -laws, getting ready to get married. We built and made almost everything that was at our wedding by hand. Yeah, we did a lot. It was a lot. Emily did a lot, especially. I developed a mental health disorder called panic disorder. She's doing good now. And now, yeah. So a lot of factors went into us pushing back. And then? Starting this again. Hang on, I'm going in order. So I had some problems that I had to work through. There was a lot on my plate, and it took until now to recover from all of the pressure and the constant tasks and, you know, the difficulties of getting married when you're type A and very anxious.

2:38 It was a lot. It is a bad combination. It was a lot. But the wedding was incredible. We had so much fun. Best day of my life. It was the best day of my life, too. Okay, excellent. So we're on the same page. Yeah, I've said that a couple times now, but not on air. Now it's immortalized. But it was awesome. And then we had a mini moon. We went to Branson. That was fun. That was fun. And then we bought a house. We closed on a house in January. And that has been a whole challenge. Probably the biggest challenge. We've encountered thus far in life. Like briefly. So very exciting to have a house. We have been very blessed the last year, I would say. We've got so many good things happening to us, but it's been very stressful. Lucky to be able to have a house. Unlucky in our house selection. Well, yeah. We got... We didn't buy the right house as far as the condition it was in. We thought we bought a house, we wouldn't have to do anything. Maybe a slight paint job or something. And since then, I have replaced all the plumbing in the house. Drain, waste, vent, new water pipes, all of it. Electricals, we had structural problems. We had structural issues in the basement and in the den. Mold, dead mice in the vents. Mold, flooding. Yeah, water, yeah. Yep. And so we've done a bunch of

4:09 side projects as well as like very Bob the Builder chapter of our lives. Yeah. Vince has been just the handyman. I have been trying to participate in certain areas. It's been good. Yeah. And also after that, what happened next related to the lighthouse slowdown? Then in March, or was it April? I mean, the house stuff is still ongoing, just so you know. It all just melds together. Yeah, let's not pretend that we don't have no walls downstairs. Yeah, we don't have walls in the house. For context, the house was built in the 60s. 61. 1961. Early as it gets. And the plumbing was original, galvanized steel, which is heavily advised against now because... Oh, they'd never build it now. Yeah, because it corrodes very easily. And that's where our pipes were.

5:07 We had like a clearance of about a pea size in all of our drains. That's the drainage. Yes. And then the electrical expired before Vince was born. Yep, 95. So we're 30 years past its expiration date. Huge fire risk. Yeah. And the pressure. So you talked about the pea -sized opening in the piping. That's the waste and drain piping. The supply water piping, there is low pressure. So there's a pressure reducing valve. They had the house pressure set to 30 PSI and I raised it up. It can be up to 80 technically by code. And I raised it to 60 and we started getting leaks on a bunch of small joints. So the previous owners hid horrible, awful, terrible piping that can't be cleaned out. awful, terrible piping that leaks when it's at an appropriate pressure. Like you can shower and all that. Yeah.

6:03 And mold and what else? They had to have been sick. Structural issues. The mold was unbelievable. Yeah. I smelled it. I was like, oh, we have a mold problem. Yeah. So we're really getting in there. We really got into every nook and cranny of this place. But you know what? What? That's what lighthouse people do. We've talked time and time again. Lighthouse people get after it. Yeah, they're renovating lighthouses. We're renovating house. The lowdown. The lowdown house. And then, sorry I interrupted you. You're good. What happened next? So we went to Boise State and we did a lecture, a two -hour lecture. um for the osher institute on lighthouse history and um lighthouses in the 21st century so really cool we kicked butt i will be honest i am not a public speaker but now i'm kind of convinced that i can be if i wanted to oh yeah because especially on that topic i was well vince took off a lot of pressure because i was like i'm not getting up there I'm not speaking and Vince was like okay I'll do it but then I got there and I was like I can do this because it's a subject that I love and that I know and these people all gathered with the expectation to learn more about what I love to talk about so yeah it ended up being really great yeah for for those of you who were there if you're listening yeah thanks for joining us and it really was a blast we had we had so much fun Great questions. Everyone was involved. Just

7:33 a really great crowd. Yeah, for those who weren't there, most of you, I would guess. So it's a lifelong learning institution, and it's sponsored by Boise State University. So we got to speak on campus. I'm pretty sure it was a community center. I think of all of Boise as on campus. That's not accurate. It's very near campus, if not on campus. I think it's on campus. I think it was on campus. But right on the river walk. And the group was probably aged 40 to 90. About 150 people. So we had a great turnout. great turnout i had some family that got to attend and sit in the back it was a lot of fun take some videos yeah but i was i was really nervous like working on the presentation right up to the minute we went in there yeah we struggled sipping coffee yeah so but my mom lives in boise uh my sister lives up there and so we had some family connections and that was one of the questions they asked us they're like why do you guys like lighthouses? And why are you here? And we, you know, the second one, I was like, Oh yeah, yeah, you know, it's obvious to me, but yeah, they, uh, we got some good feedback from that. And I tried to record the presentation. Um, things were pretty chaotic and I focused on being present.

8:59 So I don't think the recording is good quality, but I'll check it out. We'll see. Um, and if not, what we'll do is show you some slides and talk about it in the future on one of my episodes, if that's all right. Yeah. I mean, it was just, it was really cool. Like to go from what we've talked about over the past three years, four years, four years, and then go assume, you know, what if they don't know anything about lighthouses and we have to be able to be entertaining and educating and accurate. Yeah. Without going so in depth that someone who doesn't know anything would be lost. And so it was, it was, Good to, it felt like an honor to talk about the other societies within the Lighthouse community. And I actually kind of learned a lot by doing that research. Yeah, good recap. I clarified a lot of stuff, yeah, that I didn't know all the details of. And I don't know, it was good for us too.

9:50 Good review. You know, sit next to somebody on a plane and they want to talk to you. Well, I can talk for two hours on Lighthouses. It's a special skill. Yeah, but I was nervous. Yeah, you took like the rest of the day. To calm down. Mm -hmm. Needed a good reset nap. Yep. I did take a nap. Yeah, yeah. And then, what, I mean, that was what, April? I think it was. March or April? Either March or April. I can't remember. Probably April. We had just bought our house. Projects were started. Oh, yeah. Emily. Because while we were gone, there was no toilets. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Yeah, guys. I'm doing it all. So, I did everything but the structural so far.

10:30 Mm -hmm. I'm trying to. We might hire stuff out, but, you know. As of now. Fighting the fight right now. Right. And then we've had professional changes and opportunities come up. And we've had family excitement. And my twin sister got married in June. She did. And my older sister got engaged in March to be married in March next year. So there's a bunch of. I have responsibilities, but also lots of excitement coming. Yeah. Planning, putting on some events, supporting the sisters. That's been some time. Yeah. And, you know, my family, there's no like notable specific things, but there's a lot going on still. Just figuring out how to spend more time together when everyone's so separated. Yeah. But, you know, since the Osher, I don't know, we probably spent 80 hours.

11:26 Getting ready for 40 hours at least. I think in increments of 40, but a bunch of hours getting ready for that. And then it was so much fun. And then I posted on LinkedIn, hey, we're coming back. And then, you know, we've continued to face challenges. So we're really excited just to be on air. Yeah, we're doing it. And back. We're back, baby. And I've got some decaf and it's enough to get me talking here. So I should shut up. You already half downed it. Yeah, I should let you talk. Have we gotten 151 coffees since our break? No, it's a new not sponsor of ours. Yeah, another coffee expenditure for our podcast. That's right, we're investing. 151 coffee, it's very good. I got cinnamon dulce. Yep, and I'm drinking a German chocolate. Sugar -free, decaf. Yeah, less caff. I'll let you take on.

12:23 And another thing I want to mention is that moving forward for now, we're going to be posting once a month instead of twice a month. We're going to ease back in. We have a good grip on what's going on in our lives right now. And I don't think we should shock it with doing something different. It's a lot of hard work, especially on my part, having to edit. post and manage and like all the notes and stuff so once a month will be much more reliable yeah i'm excited i'm like we talked about it between us but we want to go we want to get it started and keep it going but inevitably things are going to continue to be exciting in our lives so yeah if you know we're not we don't have sponsors we're not making money so what are we yeah and when we talked about what are we doing you know letting this die the answer was always no like oh no but you could just push it off for forever. And so I'm glad we're just pulling the trigger and starting this up again. Let's get this bad boy on the road. Thanks to everyone that reached out. We got lots of messages in the past six months about if we're coming back and they miss us and they're, you know, listening to our episodes and people talking about certain episodes that they were listening to and commentary on. So thank you for all of our listeners for sticking around and hopefully you're happy that. We're back because we're happy we're back. Let's go. I am continuing.

13:53 That was technically our history buoy. It's fair. It's a fair amount of history. So I'll start our lighthouse and I'm continuing the series on Green Island Lighthouse. Okay. There are quite a few. We're not even halfway done. So Newport Harbor was a break. from our Green Island. And that break ended up being six months. And now we're back with the next Green Island lighthouse. This time in British Columbia. So we're not even in the USA this time. All right. Close, but not quite. We covered the one in Wisconsin and Ohio. And both of those were in ruins. I don't know if it's trying to ring some bells for you. Yeah, both were on the doomsday list. Now both removed because. doomsday has occurred it sucks it happens we can't save them all but the one that we're talking to today is well cared for and still staffed so the polar opposite of what has happened in our past green island lighthouses so this is the northernmost lighthouse in british columbia so as far up as you can go it's built on green island and they say that They named it this because it's as far from green as you can possibly get, like very rocky, barren. Okay. Oh, I forgot.

15:17 Where the heck have we been? I have a history of a slide. All good. So I pulled up a map. You can see we have Alaska starting, and we have a Green Island lighthouse right on the border before that happens. And then I will zoom in. You can see it's in a straight and between. two clumps of islands yeah it took me a while to figure out where we're at i was like alaska we're at the south part of alaska so yeah we're at the little southern tail okay yeah ketchikan ketchikan's a fair size oh spot we're very much near i forget that you know a lot of alaskan geography ah some people would say a lot some people would very much say not any but i think ketchikan here's i'm gonna show my Knowledge.

16:06 Okay, excellent. Or lack of. Yeah. I think it's one of the spots that some ships do stop on the north and south cruise lines. That would make sense. I know Juneau, obviously Anchorage, but like Ketchikan I've heard of, and that's why I think I've heard of it. Yeah. Because this lighthouse is, it's, this island specifically is on the way to and from shipping to Skagway. and other northern cities along the Inside Passage. Have you heard of that? Yes. Okay, because that's kind of where this is all laid out. Yep. I figured what you were talking about is probably on the same passage. Yeah, yeah. You have to, the cruise ships, and I'm sure all shipping ships, take that passage to avoid the rough exterior. Yeah.

16:52 For our listeners, Inside Passage is the waterways all along the west coast of Canada, parts of Alaska, and ends in Washington. So that's kind of fun. There's a little connection between everything. Super cool. So in 1897, the Klondike Gold Rush increased maritime traffic in the region. And I don't really know exactly the history behind it, but there was some steamer that showed up in Seattle filled with gold. And they were like, oh, this is from the Klondike. And so then a ton of people, a week later, a ton of people got on a steamer to go. mine for gold and it was the steamer mexico and it left seattle filled with people and supplies to deliver to the klondike but wrecked on green island didn't go very far so yeah right away we are presented with a problem that's how we discovered that there needed to be a lighthouse on here and in 1902 so just like five years later a steamer carrying 2500 tons of coal from vancouver island to a mine in alaska so people looking for gold, ran aground on Green Island, and this is when they officially decided that a lighthouse needed to be built. You know, it's like sometimes they just need a couple of instances, and they're like, oh, maybe it was a fluke. Yeah, maybe he was drunk. Somebody was drinking. There was no one at the wheel. And then? And they're like, oh, actually, that's kind of important. This was brought to the attention of the Department of Marine and Fisheries, which

18:24 was... in charge of lighthouses and other things in Canada at the time, and eventually evolved into the Canadian Coast Guard. Oh, cool. Yeah. It's like similar to our lighthouse board at the time. They've got a lot of coast. I know. Can you imagine? And especially, it's one or the other side. There's got to be two separate entities, you know, for east and west of Canada. I don't know. Oh, yeah. So Green Island was built on the southwest point of the island after this. That's the sound bit right there. Me reaching for a button. That's my new text ringtone. It's a very blurry picture, but this was the OG lighthouse.

19:10 It gets a remake later on. So we have a 44 foot tall integral tower. So it was built into the keeper's dwelling and it was like on the corner. The keeper's dwelling was a story and a half. And then it had a square tower and circular lantern room attached to one of the corners. Had a third order Fresnel lens, which had eight panels and flashed for, wait for it, 0 .787 seconds every 5 .625 seconds. What is this, Canadian measurements? This is one of those instances where I think they just turned on the light and then just timed it. They weren't like, let's calibrate it to be exactly this distance. There's got to be a reason. And they were just like, let's just time it. Okay, it flashed for .787 seconds. Sure.

20:08 Like, it's official. And it's still that flash pattern. So they, like, really stuck to their guns. Okay. But it has a full revolution of exactly 45 seconds. So I think they cared more about the total revolution and not, like, evenly splitting up the flashes. Anything of 45 seconds is reasonable. .78 seconds is... What are we talking about? I can't even do the fractions on that. 78 over 100. 787 over 1 ,000. Could you reduce that down, please? Oh, man. Oh, and the cost to build it was 800... Sorry. That would have been so cheap. $8 ,775 .20. In 1902? Yeah, so still pretty cheap.

20:53 compared to the lighthouses we've talked about there's been by 1902 there's been some like 40 ,000 yeah so and this is this is an isolated lighthouse out on a tiny barren island um you know i think 11 miles from the mainland so really it didn't look that far on the map okay it didn't i know it is funny because i read a story that i'll talk about later oh wait No, I won't actually. So I'll tell it right now. Basically, one of the keeper's sons fell from like a small cliffside and hit his head. And it was like a very grievous wound. And so he rode his son the 18 kilometers or something to a hospital, which could only be found on the mainland. So he like that. That was your only choice. Like, oh, something terrible has happened. You can't send for a doctor. Wow.

21:47 And then for them to come, like he was like, what's the fastest way for me to get to a doctor? So I was like, and then there's talk, which I will talk about later, about getting supplies and how they just waited and waited and waited. And I'm like, why wouldn't they just row to shore to go get supplies? That's a long way. Yeah, but it ends up. being a lot farther than it looks, especially because it's so close to an island on one side, but that doesn't have anybody on it. Yeah, I don't have it. Yeah. In today's day and age, it's like, oh, there's bound to be somebody on the island, but there wasn't. Crazy. Yeah. The first principal keeper and assistant keeper were brought from Victoria, which was William A. Forgot to look it up. Just spit it. Bosdet.

22:35 Okay, Bosdet. You think? No, I bet. I mean, it could be Boz Day. I'm going to say Boz Day. And Stephen Baker. And after their journey to the lighthouse, they were each awarded $20 for, quote, damage caused to provisions required at the light station while in transit, end quote. So something happened on their ride over there. Their gear was gone. Yeah, they lost a bunch of provisions. I don't know. Also, like, money doesn't replace that. I was just about to say. If the distance is so far that you need monthly deliveries of supplies, then I think the $20 doesn't really get you anything. Yeah. If it like, let's say it was food they lost. Yeah. You can't buy more food. You actually need the food. The $20 is to, hey, sorry, you're going to starve a little bit. I don't need that. Yeah. Here's payment for starving. Probably the toilet paper. Baker succeeded Bosnian after one year, and we'll talk about later. There's been a lot of turnover at this lighthouse. That's fast. Yeah. The lighthouse had supplies and food delivered to it, like I mentioned, I think every month. But in 1909, the supplies were almost a month late. Can you imagine if you're given provisions for a month?

23:47 I would have starved. I would have starved. It says that Baker and his family survived on cornstarch and bread. What do you do with cornstarch? You mix it with water? I don't know. Disturbing. There's so many people starved to death or almost starved to death in history where I'll miss breakfast and I'm like, oh my God. Devastated. I'm losing weight right now. I'm doing so good. I can feel myself getting lighter. I feel sharp right now, like a predator. Quick. And then a cheeseburger comes at lunchtime and I'm back to normal. Oh man, that sounds so good right now. Cheeseburger? What are we having for dinner? Steak? That's pretty good too. Oh man, cornstarch and bread.

24:34 Not good. Yeah, I can't even believe it. I'm glad they survived though. Well, and on top of that, the lighthouse oil ran out. Obviously, the supplies don't just mean food. It's like the oil. So they used what was left in the lanterns around the house to make it last for another day. But then after that, the lighthouse went dark because there was no fuel. And they had no light at the house. Yeah. So it was just... Keeper's house. Wow. That's terrifying. A tug and barge carrying 2 ,300 tons of coal hit Green Island the next night. So our lighthouse, once again, proves how necessary it is. But the plus of this is that this barge had wireless. And so they send a distress signal for the fact that the keepers, what? What do you mean? What do you mean they had wireless? Like they could send a radio signal. Okay. They had like a ham radio.

25:27 Something. A radio, I don't know what the word, it's not mobile, so it's like a radio station. No, no, it's like a, yeah, like a communication device. I thought you meant like Wi -Fi. They had wireless, so Netflix was still on. They were still able to stream. And they watched TV. The crew, who were now grounded on Green Island, were picked up. Nobody died. Big win. That's good. Generously left the keeper coal oil for the lighthouse so they could bring the light back up. And some food from the ship stores. So that was nice. So it was like a soft crash. Yeah, it was like... They could still get to the boat. Yeah, I think... I've never heard of coal oil, ironically. The tug was able to be refloated, but the barge was not, which is unfortunate.

26:19 It was because there was so much weight on it, they couldn't. So that was a lost cause. But the supplies that they were waiting on all this time arrived two days after that. I'm like, who is in charge? Of bringing food and sustenance to people trapped on an island. But it's so, I want to say military, but it's so like regulated. Like, oh, you bring a month's supply on a month's interval. And like, well, if it were you or me, it'd be like, okay, bring a month's supply every three weeks and it'll be great. Yeah. You know what I mean? Because then there's excess and then what if something happens? But that's not how the world is. It's crazy to be a month. You skipped a month. Like that's unacceptable. Here's my $20. I think they said that they were like eating seagull eggs and stuff. Okay. That actually doesn't sound so bad. But then the kid who lived there at the time who was eating those seagull eggs said he can't even like think about it without shuddering. They probably didn't cook them. Only eating. Oh, no way. They didn't have any oil.

27:31 Well, you can still heat a pan. With? Fire? I see the problem now. I see what you're saying. I'm like, you don't need to cook with oil. You don't need. Just turn on. Just put it in the microwave. A dash of olive oil? You don't need that. Just put it in the microwave. That's hilarious. Side question. My B. Kind of a thought. How many times is it worse to have a lighthouse that's not lit or no lighthouse at all? I think it's worse to have a lighthouse that's not lit because that shipping route, the tugboat, crashed probably because, oh, I don't see the lighthouse, so we're safely out of range of the reef or the island or whatever it might be. Or is it his first trip?

28:19 They're just 100 % reliant on the lighthouse. We didn't have the GPS. And they didn't have radios on boats. Yes, like the sensors and stuff. Lighthouses were... your mode of knowing when something was yeah coming and it was dark and apparently this passageway is extremely windy and this yeah this area is suckish for navigating so you can see how it happened good photo though yeah i know i pulled up another photo it's a lot clearer than the first one um got some men standing in it that's how you can tell it's a good official photo so you can scale the building yes i like their lightning rod it's it's prominent it's got a wind vane on it yeah yeah cute pretty cool relevant to what i'll talk about later oh no i mean it's fine no no this one's not one of those struck by no no the weather vane specifically anyway while this lighthouse is two miles from dundas island which i was talking about is not populated it's over 11 miles to the mainland and this made it difficult to get medical care and obviously food and occasionally sailors would stop on the island for lunch with the keepers while fishing because this area is just like a dangerous it's dangerous it's hard to navigate it's unpredictable and it's exhausting so often people stop on the island where they know that there's a nice guy that is lonely and probably

29:52 wants to hang out. They might cook their fish for them. Yeah, exactly. The area is also a migratory path for whales. And the lighthouse is at the tip of Hecate Strait, which is considered the fourth most dangerous body of water in the world. Really? Yes. I was like, how? Who decides this? But I saw it in multiple sources. So I was like, okay. Dangerous in terms of wrecks? Yeah. Like the conditions are really hard. Sure. Okay. It is a huge place for salmon and halibut fisheries. And it's 200 meters at its deepest. So it's like extremely shallow. And so when they have like really, really high winds and storms and stuff, the waves. during the storms would expose the ocean floor wow so you can imagine if you're like a small dinghy and you're caught in a storm you just get crushed on the ocean floor and then drowned it's that'd be a terrifying can you imagine seeing the ocean floor no so that's what this area and you would die that's why we had a high turnover of keepers and apparently the wind is constant like sustained 90 mile per hour winds.

31:08 It's a great spot for a windmill. That is to say that the keeper had lots of run -ins with small fishing boats and people who were out of their depth. It's so fun to be back. It's fun. 1957, a new... octagonal concrete tower with two dwellings was built. So it was flanked by two separate dwellings. One for assistants, one for head keeper. I think most of the time we had a head keeper and an assistant. Yeah, one and one. It was 35 feet tall and white with a red lantern room and all the dwellings were white with red roofs. So it's very pretty. Pull up a picture. Oh, that's gorgeous. Shockingly beautiful.

31:55 Wow. And also gives you good insight to the size of the island. Not very big. Yeah, nice little par three. They do have a spattering of grass on the rock, which is good. It's pretty, I mean, it's very rocky. Beautiful site, but hard to live there. Yeah, not somewhere you can be growing. You know how a lot of keepers have gardens and livestock and stuff. This is kind of not somewhere you can do that. Dang. Really pretty though. Yeah. Over time, buildings had been added to the station. You can see there's a lot of buildings. These are like more current photos. But now we have, quote, the 1945 storage shed slash workshop.

32:36 The 1945 tractor shed. The 1945 storage garage. So obviously 1945 was a big time to be building new buildings. The 1963 bedroom senior keeper's dwelling. The 1962 bedroom dwelling. and the winch house and the 2000 engine room winch winch house okay they said witch oh no and i'm sorry the 2000 the witch house and it's like casually we have someone living in our midst 200 something what was the last thing 2000 engine room 2000 what 2000 the year 2000 the year 2000 It is kind of funny when you say it like that. I thought you meant like 2 ,000 gallon oil storage or something.

33:24 We're off. Give me units. It's just 2 ,000. Just the year. I did. I had a truck that was a 2 ,000, my second truck. And every time I would say, yeah, it's a 2 ,000 Dodge Ram. People would be like, a 2 ,500? A 1 ,500? Is it a one ton? A year 2 ,000. No, it's a year 2 ,000 Ram 2 ,500. That is funny in terms of like cars or anything like machinery. 2000 could be anything. It's so confusing, yeah. Joey's back in case you can't hear him. He's like, you forgot your mascot.

34:05 Aren't I a part of this? That's right. We should record his meow and put it on our soundboard. Yeah, we don't have to. He's here every episode. I can't get him close enough to the mic. At this point, when they built the new lighthouse, the flash pattern was kept the same, but was now run by solar power. So it's pretty cool. This lighthouse had a high turnover rate for keepers, as I mentioned several times, due to its barren island and distance from shore. Though a few keepers stayed for many years and loved the whole remote location and living in this fashion. One of those being Keeper Morin, served from 1919 to 1936. So that's a pretty good chunk of time. That's like 17 years, right? I'm going to try to pronounce Serge Pair. I want to say his name is. From 1996 to 2016. So that's 20 years. And the current staff, Barney Hayes, who served from 2016 to at least 2024. He may still be there today. Wow, he's rocking it. Yeah, I just can't find an absolute confirmation that he's still there. But at the very least, he was in 2024.

35:14 It's still manned then. Yes, it is a staffed lighthouse. Huh. I don't know if they're technically called keepers, but they call themselves keepers. So maybe it's different from the U .S. where it's like, oh, you're now a civilian. Yeah, I mean, what is it? Sally Snowman was 2024 she retired? Or was it? Was it then? I think you're probably right. 2020s, we'll say. Boston Light. Yeah, for some reason it seems more common in other countries that lighthouses still have people serving at them. Yeah. So surge pair talked a bit about being a keeper there. They have to do weather reports every three hours, starting at 3 a .m. to 10 p .m. in two different shifts.

35:55 So he and the assistant would like split it down the middle. They work seven days a week until they have some paid holidays. And then a relief keeper would come take their place for that time period. And he said these were either from another lighthouse, these relief keepers. Or someone who applied and didn't get a job as keeper because there was nothing available at the time. But then they were put into the reserves if they needed a relief keeper. Which is kind of cool. It is cool. God, they weren't just like, no, we don't need you. No, I'll full up, thanks. Yeah. He said lots of assistant keepers took the job thinking that the remoteness of the location meant that they wouldn't have to do anything.

36:35 He's like, well, you're going to be in for a surprise because it's... It's grueling, hard, constant work. Rungo. Yeah. In 2015, Green Island Lighthouse and 20 other lighthouses were given heritage status in Canada. And this is like the National Register of Historic Places in the U .S. Awesome. They're equivalent. They noted in their heritage value notes when they were made, like, what is that word I'm trying to think of? Made their... inauguration it's like their collection of data about the place like yeah here's the heritage status here's why we did it here's what's valuable yeah here's the history stuff like that but when they made that they noted that uh quote the green island lighthouse is highly valued by the pacific maritime community due to its isolated location The Green Island Lighthouse is not associated with a single town or community, but is a familiar landmark to a great variety of international marine traffic. The Green Island Lighthouse continues to play a role in reinforcing Canadian sovereignty by establishing a human presence on the remote coastline. Just five kilometers from the Alaskan border, it is the first notable landmark that is seen as marine traffic enters Canada. That's cool. Its red and white colors provide a distinctive and unmistakable welcome that such vessels are now within Canadian waters.

38:02 That's really cool. Yeah. And that's our Green Island Lighthouse for British Columbia. Very cool. Very beautiful, clean, well taken care of. Oh, I've got another picture of Surge Pair in front of the sign to Green Island Light Station. Looks cold. Yeah, it does look cold. I mean, the wind has just got to be unbearable. They have a little lighthouse in front of the lighthouse. I know. And it looks like it has like shelves in it. It's a book. They actually have a lot of visitors. It's just hard to get there. Did you look into it all? How do visitors typically come out? Are they on their own to come out there? I think they're on their own, but it's not advised because of the difficulty of travel in there.

38:43 I imagine it'd be hard to... If we are tourists, right? Hey, take us out there. Someone would be like, we actually don't go out there. 11 miles? Yeah. But it'd be really cool. I think it's fun, the red and white. I never, I did not think about the border being there. It always looks spectacular. Canadian. Especially if it's clean, like just freshly painted is really nice. Yeah. So that's our third of some indeterminate number of Green Island lighthouses. I'm still finding more, I swear. How many are there? How many are there? I get to like. I was like, okay, there's only one more. And then I'm like, oh, okay, there's one more after this. And now I'm thinking there's two more after this. There's got to be more than two. Green Island? There's a lot of Green Islands.

39:33 I guess. Any island that had green on it, they're like, you know what? You know what we could call this? Green Island. I think there's another one in Canada on the other side. East side. We'll see. East side versus west side, Canada. We'll see. I'll educate you guys on all the Green Islands. It's kind of fun. Hopefully nobody's getting bored. Of hearing the same name over and over. It's so confusing. It's very different. Every lighthouse. It's not like I'm covering the same type of lighthouse over and over. There's always a story. Not very special. That's it. Cool. Well, thanks for covering that. Yeah. Getting us back on the road. Back into the water. Yeah. And technically, you're next. I'm next. That sounds daunting.

40:18 Technically. This was supposed to be your episode. Well, I have plenty of ideas, and I actually today learned about a new place that I'm going to talk about. Okay. So sassy. It's not a new place, but it's newly known about. Good to you. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Good job. Thanks. Love you. That's my wife. My husband. Yeah, we've never been married on the air. that's so cute it's very cute thank you to all of our listeners for sticking around and hopefully you're happy that we're back and that you'll come back for our next episode in a month we're happy that you're listening yeah keep your eyes peeled and we hope to catch you next time on the lighthouse a little slow on the button