If the light is in operation it is being manned. When I was there, the penny pinchers in Ottawa were promoting automated lights to cut costs. At that time, many lighthouses in the US had already been converted to automatic operations and as often is the case, Canada was following suit.
It was my duty station but I spent a lot of time at VTS.
I haven’t kept in touch with him but the assistant light keeper at the time wrote a book about lighthouse keepers in isolated areas who went bonkers from solitude (so they thought).
It turns out the skin in their hands was absorbing the mercury in which the lens apparatus floated . It turned out that hat makers suffered from the same affliction because they made the beaver hats shine by coating them with mercury which is highly poisonous. They became known as the proverbial Mad Hatters.
I can’t remember his name but he also wrote other books so you could probably google him.
I think Atkinson Light is still manned because its in the middle of a popular public park and people are curious. I reckon the people there are there to protect the light and the buildings from the public as much as to maintain the light.
But I still want to know them just so I can sit on their back deck and have a cold one.
If you can find the authors contact info I’ll contact him and help you with an introduction. If he is still in the business, he would certainly be a senior keeper by now and a wealth of knowledge.
That Tor Viking is the clear carrier of the Foundation Maritime spirit. “Rescues mariner and his cat” I think we should buy the Magne, Njord, Brage, and Loke, too. I’m sure Odin can find something to do, too.
“Hello, Your Majesty? Yeah, its me. Don’t put the chequebook away yet, I have an idea.”
(I did email a Senator, just in case they don’t follow my posts here.)
Prince Rupert’s prominence has been a long time coming. Its extraordinary positioning was spotted in the early 1900s but its ambitions were cut short when its principal backer – Charles Melville Hays, the railroad tycoon who laid the groundwork for the critical link underpinning it today – died aboard the Titanic in 1912.
I’m glad it worked out for her, but would not the normal response merely be to print new labels to stick over the Saudi ones? I see that done from time to time on various products.
I suppose she could have done that. But she didn’t have to respond at all. She was interviewed for a news story (answering the question: do we even trade with Saudi Arabia?), and it was everyone else who responded. I feel particular warmth towards and kinship with the customer(s) in Jordan: I know from spending a summer there that they have the same spirit of hospitality as we do and accept an absolutely astounding number of refugees, as we try to do. And their food is soo good. I really hope there’s a sweets shop in Amman selling maple baklava. (And if there is, and you’re reading this, save some for me).
I think we should buy the Magne, Njord, Brage, and Loke, too. I’m sure Odin can find something to do, too.
