Since the Earthquake my Wife is nervous each time there is a storm as the building shakes. My wife has contracted Rheumatism since being here owing to the dampness, we have had so many severe storms that it has been necessary to mop the bedroom floor during the night, and move the bed to the far corner of the room to escape the water. The lighthouse sustained only minor damage, but one month later, Taylor had had enough. His friend, William Taylor took over the light on October 18, 1918.Īt midnight on December 6, 1918, the Nootka Lighthouse shook violently, when a magnitude 6.9 earthquake struck just off the coast. Smith petitioned for a transfer and happily accepted an appointment to Cape Mudge, where his daughter would be able to attend school. The cold, clammy weather at Friendly Cove wreaked havoc on Smith’s wife, and within a few years of her arrival, rheumatism had made her a confirmed invalid. His twenty-two-year-old son was left in charge of the light during his absence. Smith had emigrated from England with his eldest son and in 1912 requested leave to return to England to bring back his wife and the rest of his family. On March 15, 1911, Herbert Smith, the storekeeper turned lighthouse keeper, first exhibited the new light, produced by a fourth-order lens at a focal plane of 108 feet. The finished lighthouse measured thirty-seven feet tall from the base of its square dwelling to the top of the octagonal lantern centered on the structure’s hipped roof. Miguel group of islands lying off the entrance to Friendly Cove. Ottawa obliged, and in 1910, construction began on a lighthouse atop San Rafael Island, the middle and largest of the St. Three years later, a petition was sent to Victoria, signed by “many settlers and others involved in the shipping interests of the West Coast of Vancouver Island,” humbling praying for a light at Yuqout Point to mark Nootka Sound. In January 1906, the same month the crew of the King David was rescued, Herbert Smith, the storekeeper at Friendly Cove, established a light at the entrance to Nootka Sound to assist mariners. Their camp had been a hundred miles from Cape Beale, but just eight miles from Friendly Cove. The six were never heard from again.Īfter being marooned for thirty-three days, the shipwrecked men were about to launch another lifeboat toward Cape Beale, when they were spotted by the crew of the Queen City, outbound from Nootka Sound. Not realizing how far north they had drifted, they sent off a lifeboat with six men, including the Chief Officer, to try to reach the life station at Cape Beale.

Taking to lifeboats, the crew was able to haul themselves and some provisions to a shingle beach, where they found an abandoned Indian camp.

Their vessel snagged on two big knuckles of rock when its anchor slipped, and the ship had to be abandoned. After drifting northward for three days in a dense fog, they found themselves in a precarious position, stuck in the middle of Bajo Reef near Nootka Sound. On December 7, 1905, Captain Davidson and the crew of the King David spotted land and what they thought was the light at Cape Beale. Within twenty years, the British and Spanish had moved on, much to the relief of the sea otter, then on the brink of extinction. Photograph courtesy Library and Archives Canada Friendly Cove, the summer home of Chief Maquinna and the Mowachaht, was where the Spanish built a fort in 1789 and where in 1792 Captain George Vancouver and Don Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra attempted to negotiate possession of Nootka Sound. Thinking that he was asking for a sheltered anchorage, they answered, “Nootka-satl” which roughly translated means “to go around.” The name stuck.ĭue to the abundance of the coveted sea otter, Nootka Sound became a hotly contested prize between the English and Spanish.

Standing on the deck of his flagship, Captain Cook asked the welcoming Mowachaht what they called the place. In 1778, Captain James Cook and his crew aboard the Resolution became the first Europeans to land in current day British Columbia.

Aboard the Uchuck III, heading west from Gold River, you sense each mile along the Muchalat Channel toward Friendly Cove is taking you further back in time, until you enter an era when there was only water, trees, and rocks.

Nootka island