39
Call Number: PDP08860Catalogue Number PDP08860
Subject: Lighthouses
Geographic Region: Alberni Clayquot
Title: Cape Beale Lighthouse
Date: 1931
Photographer/Artist: M.M.
Accession Number:
Courtesy BC Archives
40
Steve Clarke, retired fireman and Bamfield resident off and on for a good part of his life, in conversation about his reminiscences of stories told to him by Mrs. McKay, daughter of the first Lighthouse Keeper at Cape BealeI've been asked to come over and talk a little bit about the memories I have, about Bamfield, from the old days. I was lucky enough to be here as a young fella in the late forties, and one of my old friends was Alec McKay, who was born here, but his mother was actually more important, her name was Annie Cox. She married McKay. Her husband had a trading post on Hand Island before the turn of the century, for about 20 years. He married Annie Cox, who was part of the Cox family who was the first light keepers at Cape Beale. I believe it was, say 1889 or 1880. This old was just a delight. She was super. So, anyways, after she and McKay married, they moved to Bamfield. It was just at the time that they built the Cable Station. And so they built this great big house and it was called Pioneer House. It was where all the workmen used to stay who were building the Cable Station. So they had a little store, and the old Pioneer House, it had about ten bedrooms. So we're talking about 1947. At that time there was just the two of them living there, Uncle Alex, my friend, and Annie McKay, a dour old Scotch lady. But she was completely in control when I met her. But she still in those days made her own bread. She still preserved eggs. She'd buy ten dozen eggs and put them in a great big crock with water glass. A very self-sufficient woman and I guess it came from living on the lighthouse. So getting back to the lighthouse stories, they arrived; they were rowed up from Victoria by dugout canoe to Cape Beale. They arrived and got the light started. In those days the lights had to be manually…..the mechanism is clockwork where they have to crank the clock mechanism and it only lasted for four hours, so every night, every four hours they had to get…you remember the old grandfather clocks where you had the pendulum? It was the same principle. The counterweights would come up. The light was a mantle that had to be trimmed all the time. The lens was spectacular. It was actually made in France, way back when. A beautiful crystal. The lamp, because this thing was so heavy, the only way it would turn easily was if you floated it on a bath of mercury, like a trough. So that's a part of the light story that I know.
Annie would tell stories like, so she had three sisters and a brother. The supplies would come in once a year. If they were lucky and the weather was good they could make a landing. Everything was salted down, the beef, the pork, that kind of thing. Flour, tea coffee…. but the girls and the boys never went for a walk without carrying a gun in case they saw a deer or some ducks, so they would try to supplement their meals. And she says, "Oh yeah, I was a real good shot." She said "I shot deer all the time" and they would try to pack it back. At Dodgers Cover, there was quite a big settlement at that time and there was a First Nations living there, he had an agreement, I think he got paid ten dollars a year. So everyday he had to look over at the Cape Beale light and if the flag was up or down, I can't remember, there was something about the flag, and he had to come over because there would be a problem there, maybe a part or something, and he would have to pick up a part or whatever it was. I think he often took mail down to Port Alberni in those days. Port Alberni around the turn of the century was becoming developed.
Annie was just a delightful old gal. I don't know what the timeframe was. Somewhere during this clockwork story I told you about, she told the story that a gear stripped. So her father put the flag up. The Indian came over from Dodgers and they took the gear and they paddled down to Port Alberni. So every night while he was away, because he was going to have this new gear made, the girls had to have a watch and they turned the gear by hand. I can remember her telling me that story. Because the light had to flash at certain revolutions.
Because it was recorded. So she talked about that. She also talked about one time. I guess the light attracted a whole bunch of starlings, or some kind of small bird, and then in the morning the catwalk was a foot deep with dead birds. They were just so happy, because they ate them. It was fresh food.
Another great story she told was where she told one of her sisters…this old house in Bamfield, it was huge, like I say, we called it Pioneer House. There was one room that had actually been the living room at one time, and all of the souvenirs and stuff she had there… some beautiful Indian artifacts and old, old stuff. But there was one cabinet and there was a box that had tea at one time. It had come from China. It was probably about four by seven and inside there was a lovely letter and this lovely scarf. It had been given to one of her sisters. In those days the sailing ships would get brought up from Port Alberni or Victoria and if the wind wasn't right, the steam tugs used to bring them out. And once they picked up the wind. Cause the sailboats were always, costs were worried about, spending too much money on the steam tug. As soon as they got some wind they would drop the steam tug off. Anyways, this fellow got off Cape Beale and the wind died. He sat there for two or three days getting pushed in closer and closer. So Annie's sister, there was the land line to Victoria then. So she rowed out to the ship and the captain said, "Can you get a steam tug out from Victoria?" So Annie had done that. But she phoned the steam tug towing in Victoria and they said, "Well we can't come out without a deposit. Because we could come half way out there and the wind would pick up and the guy would be gone when we got there." And she said, "Well, I'll guarantee it." So she guaranteed the money. Actually the tug did come out, towed the fella offshore, he picked up the wind and he left. And about six months later, I think it was six months, it could have been longer, she got this lovely carved chest from Hong Kong, from China, full of tea, with this lovely silk scarf and this lovely letter thanking her.
41
The Wreck of the SS Valencia at Cape BealeFebruary, 1906
West Coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada
42
Call Number: A-00389Catalogue Number HP000836
Subject: ships-Disasters
Geographic Region: Alberni Clayquot
Title: The Wreck of the SS Valencia at Cape Beale the coast of Vancouver Island
Date: Jan. 23, 1906
Photographer/Artist: undertermined
Accession Number: 193501-001
Courtesy BC Archives
43
The Wreck of the SS Valencia at Cape BealeFebruary, 1906
West Coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada
44
Call Number: A-07304Catalogue Number HP020779
Subject: ships-Disasters
Geographic Region: Alberni Clayquot
Title: The Wreck of the SS Valencia at Cape Beale
Date: Jan. 23, 1906
Photographer/Artist: Crocker, Ernest William Albert, 1877-1968
Accession Number: 193501-001
Courtesy BC Archives
45
The Queen City1904
Bamfield, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada
46
Call Number: G-07162Catalogue Number HP020016
Subject: Ships
Geographic Region: Alberni Clayquot
Title: The SS Queen city Nearing Bamfield
Date: 1904
Photographer: Bradbury, Charles
Accession Number: 193501-001
Courtesy BC Archives
The Queen city was the Valencia's sister ship and part of the same steamship line. She was
one of the ships that came to the aid of the Valencia, but strangely, was ordered back to port by the company's manager.
47
The Wreck of the SS Valencia at Cape Beale1906
West Coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada
48
Call Number: G-06585Catalogue Number HP020778
Subject: ships-Disasters
Geographic Region: Alberni Clayquot
Title: The Wreck of the SS Valencia at Cape Beale
Date: Jan. 23, 1906
Photographer/Artist: Crocker, Ernest William Albert, 1877-1968
Accession Number: 193501-001
Courtesy BC Archives
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The crew of the SS Valencia1906
50
Call Number: A-07307Catalogue Number HP020786
Subject: group Photos
Geographic Region: Alberni Clayquot
Title: the crew of the SS Valencia
Date: 1906
Photographer/Artist: undertermined
Accession Number: 193501-001
Courtesy BC Archives
51
Nameplate from one of the Valencia's liferafts2005
West Coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada
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Photo courtesy BC Maritime Museum, Richard MacKenzieThe Tales that Were Told
There are several different versions of a tale told about a lifeboat discovered in a cave somewhere down the coast from the location of the Valencia shipwreck. In all of the stories, it is a cave that is accessible only during extreme tides, and in each version, the lifeboat
is manned by a crew of skeletons.
In 1933, more than 27 years after the Valencia had wrecked off the shores of Vancouver Island, lifeboat No. 5 was found drifting in the waters of Barkley Sound. No one has ever been able to establish her whereabouts for those years, nor been able to explain why her paint was still in such good condition.
In the book Shipwrecks by Thomas W. Paterson, (1976), he ventures that ....
" Surprisingly, the Valencia horror has occurred not once but several times—if one believes reports which have circulated among the
West Coast marine fraternity for 70 years.
In 1910 the Seattle Times reported a spectre which had been observed in Vancouver Island's Graveyard of the Pacific: "During the past summer, persistent rumors were brought into Seattle by sailors on vessels frequently
in and out of the cape, of a phantom ship seen off the dangerous coast of Vancouver Island.
"They said it resembled the ill-fated Valencia, which went down in those waters a few, short years ago with more than 100 souls, and that
they could vaguely see human forms clinging to her masts and rigging.
On some occasions the spectacle seemed immobile, and again the mystery
was accentuated by the fact that the phantom moved steadily with the ship of those who watched, maintaining its relative position perfectly.
Again it leaped upon the rocks where the real ship met destruction…"
Hallucination, optical illusion or—?Who knows.
Again, we can only ponder. If ever a ship could be haunted, it is ill-starred Valencia and her lost 117."
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