The coast guard’s decision to pull keepers from two light stations along the West Coast Trail caught local First Nations, municipalities, boaters and hikers by surprise — especially because an earlier Senate report that recommended halting previous destaffing plans stressed consultation should take place before any changes are made.
“We should really be making sure this is the right decision and I’m not so certain that’s the case,” said Chief Sayaač̓atḥ (John Jack) of Huu-ay-aht First Nation near Tofino, one of three nations with trail guardians who have worked with lighthouse keepers on “multiple occasions” to help those in distress.
Jack said he plans to contact the coast guard to hear its rationale for the decision, adding it needs to consider more information about the importance of staffing at the lighthouses.
“We are committed to the idea of good decision-making and if you don’t give us a chance to give our input in good faith, then is the decision as fulsome as it could be?”
The Canadian Coast Guard, part of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, recently decided to pull lightkeepers from Carmanah Point and Pachena Point light stations — four in all — before winter weather sets in.
While aids to navigation will remain, it said a geotechnical report and hazard assessment found land underneath many of the buildings was not stable and some facilities are not safe to use.
Critics, however, say destaffing the light stations will put at risk the safety of mariners, small planes and the approximately 8,000 hikers using the West Coast Trail every year.
Advocates for staffed lighthouses say technology cannot replicate the job done by lightkeepers for decades at stations along a stretch of water known as the Graveyard of the Pacific, which has major storms, fog, treacherous waters and rocky coastlines.
“The value in having actual people far outstrips any automation that may already exist or may exist in the future,” said Jack, adding keepers are trained and familiar with the territory and the number of boaters and hikers continues to increase.
The Huu-ay-aht Nation is working to foster economic development based on tourism, hospitality and property development, all of which will bring people to the area, he said. “So it makes sense to me to have coverage and I think that lighthouse keepers contribute to that coverage.”
Jerry Etzkorn and wife Janett spent 29 years at Carmanah Point as lightkeepers between 1979 and 2015. Today, their daughter is the principal lightkeeper at Carmanah Point — one of those being shifted into other roles.
Etzkorn recalls helping mariners and hikers in trouble on the water and on land over the years, noting a key part of the job is giving up-to-the minute weather reports to floatplanes and small boat operators.
He said lightkeepers are known as the eyes and ears on the coast “because there is nobody else out there.”
Aside from giving weather reports every three hours, seven times a day, “pretty much from 4:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.,” lightkeepers are on call by radio or telephone if floatplanes or boaters need an up-to-the-minute report.
“There is going to be a huge loss of service because there are many things that lightkeepers do other than just keep the light turning.”
Etzkorn said he thought nothing of hiking kilometres along the shore and on the trail in all kinds of weather to help people in trouble. At times, boaters would lose their boats and become stranded on the shore. Wild conditions can flip a boat or drive it onto rocks or a motor could fail.
Once, a man’s bilge pump wasn’t working properly so Etzkorn went out in a boat to give him a replacement pump.
Hikers would knock on his door for help or to report another injured hiker along the trail. Many had twisted their ankles or fractured bones. Hikers tackling the West Coast Trail are told they can go to both Carmanah and Pachena light stations for help.
Once on the scene, Etzkorn would take vital signs and stabilize the person, radioing the individual’s health status to park wardens who would collect people by boat or arrange for a helicopter if necessary.
A young woman once had to be taken out by helicopter because she received 17 stings from ground wasps on the trail. Although she did not go into anaphylactic shock, “there were so many of them that they overwhelmed her system and she needed to be rescued by helicopter,” Etzkorn said.
When people could not be evacuated immediately, the Etzkorns took care of them, sometimes for several days.
As lightkeeper, Etzkorn also spotted oil spills, in one case finding lumps of crude oil on the shore, and monitored wildlife, posting information signs for hikers if needed.
Carole Woodward, an author and former lightkeeper with husband Jeff George, is writing federal MPs and provincial MLAs in a effort to stop the destaffing. Opposition to the plan is growing, she said, adding the decision came out of the blue.
“It struck me as one of those reactionary and not-very-well-thought-through decisions, and which I’ve seen before in 2009 when nine stations were announced as being closed within months.”
Woodward and her husband were based at Lennard Island, also off the Island’s west coast, but she has done relief work at Pachena and flown in and out of Carmanah Point many times.
She said she does not expect the public to take the destaffing decision “meekly.”
“These stations are too important in their position on the west coast to just fold up your tent and move on.”
Jim Abram a former lightkeeper who has battled previous attempts to pull lightkeepers from stations, blasted the federal agency’s plan, saying it needs to be “nipped in the bud.”
Abram said when he heard the coast guard plan, he thought: “Here we go again.”
“This is the toe in the door.
“They are using it as an excuse to start removing keepers one station at a time.”
The rationale that buildings are unsafe is based on old reports, he said.
The helicopter pad at Carmanah is not in good condition but pilots haven’t used it for years, preferring to land on the site’s lawn because it’s on solid ground and is a larger area, he said.
Safety of the residences is not an issue at Pachena because the house where two keepers live is at the back of the property in a forest, he said. “It is hundreds of feet from the edge of the cliff and it’s totally sound. It has no red flags on it.”
Towers at each of the stations are designated heritage sites and are protected under the Lighthouse Protection Act championed by the late senator Pat Carney.
Staffed light stations are especially critical now because the number of fishing charters has vastly increased off the Island’s west coast, Abram said.
The Union of Canadian Transportation Employees, which represents lightkeepers, has sent Fisheries Minister Diane Lebouthillier a letter asking her to meet with them at the light stations so they can “point out the specific flaws and misinformation in the reports on which this decision has been made.”
Teresa Eschuk, union national president, urged the minister to put the decision on hold while stakeholders are consulted.
The decision is “rash and ill-thought out and based on data that is flawed and out-of-date,” she said.
If carried out, destaffing “will have a drastic and dramatic impact on the safety and well-being of many,” Eschuk said.
A Carmanah Point lightkeeper recently assisted with the medical evacuation of an injured hiker on the West Coast Trail on B.C. Day — an example of why light stations should not be destaffed, said a union spokesman.
Asked about the incident, a Parks Canada official said in an email that visitor safety staff provide search and rescue response to incidents on the West Coast Trail in collaboration with a network of groups, including lightkeepers, First Nations trail guardians and ferry operators.
Gord Johns, MP for Courtenay-Alberni, questioned the coast guard’s destaffing decision, asking why it’s coming six years after the original geotechnical report.
“There’s more [vessels] coming through the Strait of Juan de Fuca than ever before and it is increasing all the time.”
He and MP Alistair McGregor, who represents Cowichan-Malahat-Langford, have written to the Fisheries minister asking her to put the plan on hold and consult with communities affected.
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