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In Leaving the Lights, a film documenting their final year, the couple described how the job generally attracts people who like to keep to themselves.

Its longest-serving keepers, Ed and Pat Kidder, a delightfully curmudgeony couple, spent three decades here before retiring in 2003.

The current Nootka station ― decked out in red-and-white trim and powered by two diesel generators ― was built in 1958 with more creature comforts. “There’s so many divorces, husbands and wives running off with other keepers or other people,” Joanne said. No question, long stretches of isolation can put a strain on couples, the Tiglmanns said. Foley, a returned soldier, didn’t fare much better, asking to be relieved after a month, saying he had been sick the whole time and couldn’t go against the “will of God.” Mark and Joanne Tiglmann talk on their balcony at the Nootka Sound lighthouse Photo by Ben Nelms for National Post He said his wife had contracted rheumatism “owing to the dampness” from persistent and severe storms. William Taylor, who took over the Nootka lighthouse in 1918, quit after just three months, saying the job was “impossible” to carry out. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. lighthouses, Donald Graham writes that early keepers were a special breed “who knew hunger, deprivation and despair as constant companions in the absence of any others” and “who contemplated and sometimes carried out the ultimate escape from their nightmarish existence.” In Keepers of the Light, a book about the history of B.C. Keepers in those days had to deal with dismal wages and working conditions. It was a squat, wooden structure that helped ensure the safe movement of goods produced in canneries, lumber mills and mines. The first lighthouse on Nootka Island went into service in 1911. It’s not meant for someone who likes to shop in the mall.” Nootka Sound is pictured from an airplane near Gold River, British Columbia on JPhoto by Ben Nelms for National Post It’s meant for someone who is “a little bit anti-social, a little bit off the wall. “If you’ve got marital problems, they’re going to escalate,” Joanne said.īeing a keeper in a remote place like this is really a lifestyle, not a job, said Joanne. If you’ve ever dreamed of escaping the urban rat race and becoming a keeper of the light, be warned: it isn’t exactly a holiday on the beach. Article content Mark and Joanne Tiglmann at the Nootka Sound lighthouse in Friendly Cove, British Columbia Photo by Ben Nelms for National Postīefore they do, they gave the National Post a peek inside the life of a lighthouse keeper, including the not-so-romantic aspects of the job. While the Tiglmanns, both 61, said they love their job, they are anxious to get on with their “glory years,” which is why they are building wooden transport crates, packing up their belongings and retiring in September.

Like all keepers, their daily duties - phoning in weather reports seven times a day, responding to distress calls from boaters and non-stop maintenance work ― are performed largely out of the public eye. It’s so loud with wildlife.” The Nootka Lighthouse in Friendly Cove, British Columbia Photo by Ben Nelms for National Postįor the past 12 years, Mark and his wife, Joanne, former high school sweethearts and long-haul truckers from Alberta, have lived on this rocky outpost on the southern tip of Nootka Island ― a “piece of frickin’ paradise,” Mark called it - as keepers of a federally owned lighthouse, one of 27 along British Columbia’s coast. It’s like living in a National Geographic. “When we have the herring spawn in Friendly Cove … everything comes to dine.

#Nootka island casino how to#

I’ve seen orcas training their young how to hunt seals,” he said. “One day I look out and there are four humpbacks right in front of my kitchen. Manage Print Subscription / Tax Receipt.