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Porlier Pass
Porlier Pass light
can be considered a benchmark--the first built to cater exclusively
to steamships. Up until the 1900s the riptide swirling between
Galiano and Valdez Islands had rendered the pass unsafe for sailing
vessels. As late as 1905 the B.C. Coast Pilot warned that the
channel was "narrow and....rendered still more so by sunken
rocks; the tidal streams run from 4 to 9 knots, and over falls
and whiling eddies are always in the northern entrance. CAUTION--In
consequence of the numerous dangers existing in Porlier Pass,
mariners are advised to avoid that passage." Even so, masters
of the new steamships were already throwing the Pilot's
caution to the winds (which they could now ignore as well), and
brazenly cut through the pass to save time en route to Ladysmith's
coal chutes. Only those with long service or good memories recalled
the fate of the Del Norte.
In October 1868 her captain brought her out
of Nanaimo after refueling and elected to take the shortcut. He
steamed into the pass in a thick fog, then decided to turn back
halfway through. But the pass proved too narrow to make the
"U" turn, and the racing flood tide drove the 190-foot
steamer upon canoe Reef, shearing off her rudder and keel. For two
weeks salvors tried to extricate and refloat the Del Norte
until the ship disappeared after a violent gale on 11 November.
Late in 1901 J. Hunter, superintendent of
the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway, joined the captain of the
Vancouver-Ladysmith ferry and several "Pilots and masters of
local steamers" to press for a range of lights on the north end
of Galiano Island. James Gaudin sent their petition along to Colonel
Gourdeau in Ottawa, explaining that vessels were flaunting the
long-standing warning about Porlier Pass "in preference to
making the long detour through Active Pass or going around Valdez
and Saturna Islands." He proposed that "arrangements could
be made for the economical exhibition of these lights" by
engaging a local man to maintain them, as part-time work, at a wage
somewhere between $10 and $25 a month.
Always impressed by economy, Gourdeau gave
his agent the go-ahead to begin construction and to hire Peter
Sit-who-latza, a local Indian, for $25 a month. It would have been
an ideal arrangement, even saving the department the cost of a
dwelling since Peter lived nearby on the reserve. But politicos,
when they cut up their spoils, pay scant attention to coast. Ralph
Smith "put his foot don on it" but nominating Sticks
Allison for the job. "Of course, I dare not disobey these
instructions," Gaudin replied, and grudgingly offered Allison
the post for $30 a month, "as these lights...[did] not
require arduous work in their operation."
Gaudin had mixed feelings about Allison's
appointment. On one hand he had already offered the post to the
Indian and dreaded the effect upon the band when Sticks relieved
him: the Roman Catholic missionary had warned that the Indians
"were not at all times reliable, also that the disappointment
of being relieved by a white man after a short time of office, might
create an ugly feeling to exist between the light keeper and the
Indian after he has been relieved under these circumstances."
Besides, no dwelling had been built, so Allison would have to seek
shelter in a crude twelve-by-sixteen-foot lean-to shack left behind
by the carpenters.
The new keeper was no stranger to rough
living, however. As a nine-year-old Francis Togan (sic) Allison had
run away from his home in Greenock, Scotland, in 1875. He joined an
uncle aboard a sailing ship and went ashore a few years later at
Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, where he spliced cable in the local coal
mines. He set off under sail again, around the Horn this time, and
disembarked in British Columbia. He first found work as a farm
labourer, then went down into Nanaimo's coal shafts until 1901, when
he was lucky to crawl out alive after a mine explosion. While in
hospital he befriended a little Italian boy, sharing fruit and candy
with him. When the boy's parents demanded to know the source of this
largesse, he answered: "The man with the sticks gave it to
me," pointing to Allison on his crutches. The nickname stuck;
Allison became known as "Sticks," and few people would
ever know his real name. He was still using sticks to get around
when he took over the new light station at Porlier Pass in November
1902, and was lame for life after he put them aside. But there he
stayed, above ground with the sea at his doorstep for the next forty
years.
Sticks Allison wasted no time complaining
about his spartan accommodation. The floor had been laid on bare
ground and its boards soaked up water like a sponge. He asked Gaudin
to have it raised two feet off the ground, and to build on an
addition. "I think we should do everything to make the poor man
comfortable," the agent wrote Colonel Anderson; "[he]
lives there in solitude all the year round." There were other
drawbacks. The new keeper also had to fetch water in pails for
"quite a long distance," until Gaudin ordered a 400-gallon
tank be installed to collect rainwater from the roof. Sticks also
had two fixed lights to watch: on at Race Point and a second beacon
on Virago Point, assessible only by boat. (When in line, the two
beacons gave proper bearings for the northern entrance to Porlier
Pass.)
The agent first inspected Porlier Pass in
April 1903 and found all equipment, the towers, and their
illuminating apparatus, in "very fair condition." As for
the musty dwelling, Gaudin remarked "[As is] customary with our
experience of the absence of a woman at a station [it] is not as
tidy as could be desired, but on the whole I consider Allison makes
a very good light keeper" Besides Allison was in love with
Mathilda Georgeson, Scotty's granddaughter from Active Pass. Their
married in 1907.
Allison, who knew as well as any mariner
the dread of being lost in fog, soon won a legendary reputation
aboard the steamers for his dedication. For a year before the
department landed a hand horn at Porlier he would hobble down to the
shore and stand just above the incoming waves, beating a five-gallon
oil can with a stick in response to a steamer's whistle day or
night. Later, when the horn arrived, he cranked it as soon as heard
a signal and kept pumping away, heedless of wind and weather, until
the "all clear" came back through the mist. In return, the
CPR issued him a lifetime pass to travel free on their fleet.
"The safety of the ships and sailors
was instilled in us at a very early age," his daughter Devina
(known, along with her sister Frances, as "Miss Sticks")
recalled sixty years later, "and we often [blew] the boats
through the Pass. At the age of eight I was taught to tend the Race
Point Light and it came to be my special charge. I would clean lamp
glasses and polish the brass lamps. My dad often brought strangers
home in the evening for a meal, and sometimes a bed for the night,
if they were caught without food or blankets," Devina
remembered. "It seemed we always had folks in for meals
especially in the evening. Sometimes they would stay and we would
loan them a lantern to find their way home." During Allison's
tenure, hundreds of unexpected guests from seaward came up to the
new house, soaked and shivering after Sticks rescued them when their
boats swamped off Race Point. He lent them clothing and gave them a
meal while their own clothes hung steaming by the stove. "My
father was not a religious man, but he was a good man with a heart
of gold." she recalled. "He would give the shirt off his
back if someone needed it. We girls were taught to pray and to love
God and to trust him. When and if we were in town, he would send us
to Sunday school."
Devina and her sister Frances were typical
lighthouse children, adept at substituting imagination for
playmates. On floor-washing day, she remembered, "Daddy used to
clear out all the kitchen chairs and everything and pile them on the
veranda. My sister and I would line them all up with boxes, get our
dolls out, and we'd sit there and watch the picture show. The
picture show was the clouds." Seventy years later Devina
claimed, "I can still see different things in the clouds that
we used to see when we were kids." They had special, secret
place called "down on the grass" where they played. When
airplanes made their first appearance among the broken lumps of
cloud, the girls would tie a rock in the corner of a handkerchief
and would "zoom it from one end of the spot to the other."
There were only two blemishes upon their
otherwise idyllic existence: the die-hard animosity of some of the
Indians infused with the "ugly feelings" which Gaudin had
shrewdly anticipated, and the pay, always the pay. In spite of
Allison's reserve of tact, some band members seemed bent upon
revenge. After receiving complaints in August 1903, Gaudin counseled
Sticks to tread carefully in his dealings with them as they were
"treacherous," especially "those residing in the
vicinity of the lighthouse who were under the impression when the
lighthouse was built that they would have been entrusted with the
operation of the lights .. and not without reason either."
As early as March 1094 Allison was writing
Ralph Smith to thank him for his appointment, but also to ask for a
raise to $45 a month. Because he had two towers to maintain, he had
to "use .. [his] boat twice a day in rain or snow to go to one
of the towers." He had to cut and haul his cord wood a mile.
"Mr. Smith," he wrote, "these things all add to my
work and as there is no land goes with the lighthouse, I have to buy
all my vegetables and pay freight on all my groceries from Nanaimo;
Sir, it soon takes away my wages." Gaudin had been out three
times and "found things to his satisfaction," and promised
to recommend an increase.
By August 1905 Allison's reserve of tact
was depleting as fast as his savings. The Indian agent for Cowichan
District forwarded a letter to Gaudin from some Indians complaining
of verbal abuse. "I do not wish to condemn you unheard,"
Gaudin told Allison, but warned him, "This Department will not
tolerate any of its officers to use offensive language to any
persons, not even to Indians." In future, he instructed the
keeper "to have nothing to say to them, good, bad or
indifferent."
In March 1909 smallpox erupted on the
reserve. Allison immediately wrote to Victoria asking for
disinfectant. Gaudin advised that disinfectant was a futile means of
prevention and ordered him to take his family at once to hospital at
Chemainus and "get vaccinated," which was "the best
preventative." Upon his return Allison could not ignore his
neighbour's suffering; he flouted Gaudin's orders and went onto the
reserve to minister to them.
In July 1911 the Indian agent forwarded
more complaints to Victoria alleging that Allison had been
"Under the influence of liquor, etc." It was Robertson,
now, who warned him that "such conduct, if true, will not be
tolerated by the Department." Allison rebutted the charges.
Though "of the opinion that where there is smoke, there is
liable to be fire," the agent was willing to overlook the
complaints. If they continued, however, he would have "no
option but to recommend ... [Allison's] dismissal."
Allison was crushed. He had blithely walked
into a situation poisoned by Ralph Smith's "kindness," to
which the Indians responded in kind. Even so, Allison attributed the
slanders to a jealous neighbour, Andy Deacon, who wanted his job.
Deacon, Allison charged, had threatened to stir up the cauldron of
hatred if Allison refused to apply for a transfer. "I can find
you an Indian who lives here, he was offered money to come here
& fight Me & also to pay is Fine if I Prosecuted him,"
he revealed. "Another Indian was Entised and & Promised Pay
to Come & Shot my dog." Charges of his abuse and
mistreatment of Indian neighbours were
imaginary ones, Cannot be Real. As I
never have yet in My 14 Years Here on this Station Been anything
But their Friend I have begged off indian agent to feed & care
for their Sick which I Had been doing I Have letters of thanks
here in my Possession from Officers off the indian Dept.
Appreciating my Kindness towards them. Capt. Robertson I never yet
Entered an indian House unless it was to see & give aid to the
Sick. My Carryings one as your informants tell you are only I want
his job I must get a lighthouse & their only way is without
outside detection in use the Superstition of the indians &
tell him about Frank he beleaves it Capt. I know my own friends
here & I also Know my foes. Capt. Robertson I would Rather
think you would Protect on of your Crew until you yourself Knew
the man & his Character.
The charge that Allison was mistreating the
Indians was blatant slander. Every Christmas Eve Sticks cleared out
the kitchen, tied two huge Christmas puddings up in pillow cases,
plunged them into copper kettles boiling on the stove. When he had
lit up in the evening, the family rowed off for the reserve with two
jugs of brown-sugar sauce steaming on the floor of the boat. He sent
his daughters up to the houses and waited in the boat with a
breadknife. The Indians came down in turn, carrying "a plate
for each one in the house, whether it be man or woman, and for each
child, and a little bowel or jug," Frances remembered.
"They would bring their utensils down and Daddy would have his
knife and he would carve off a slice of pudding for each on in the
family and pour some sauce in their container." The Indians,
Devina affirmed, "were our closes friends," After visiting
the Indians they pulled up the bay to the "Jap" fishboats
riding at anchor, and divvied out more pudding, pouring the last of
the sauce into ornate ceramic bowls held over the side. "No no
work, no fish Christmas Day," Allison exhorted the puzzled
Japanese. "That's Jesus' day. Everybody rest. Suppose you don't
rest; then Jesus bring no more fish. You go out catch fish after
Christmas-time -- no fish!"
Continued:
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