2014 Sea Ice Storm

A spring blizzard  moved through quickly March 26, leaving behind sunny skies, either bare ground or snow banks and sea ice on exposed coasts after storm to hurricane force winds.  As in February 2013, Swallow Tail took the brunt of the storm but the quick movement of the storm resulted in some sea ice frozen across the peninsula but not nearly as thick as in 2013. 

Power was out on the point for 24 hours after the salt spray tripped a breaker on the pole (over 36 hours in 2013).  Two of four webcams no longer work after the wind, salt spray and power outages took their toll.  The antenna for the WiFi for the ferry blew off the boathouse, laden down with ice.  The poor flag that was flown for the first time only two weeks ago is now a tattered shred, despite reinforcing the outer edge.

Here are some photos:

Ice covered northern side of the boat house.

WiFi antenna blown off the boathouse, covered in ice.

Thickness of ice on lighthouse.

Frozen sea ice on bell house attached to lighthouse.  Ice froze horizontally as the spray was blown across the building wall.  Taken by Sarah McDonald.

Ice covered railings leading to bronze fog bell.

Ice covered rope safety lines along foot path.

Ice and snow on bronze fog bell.

Ice covered wooden bench facing away from freezing  salt spray.

Ice covered wooden bench facing freezing salt spray.

Ice covered fog horn.

North side, roof and chimmeys of keepers house covered in ice.  A couple of shingles lifted on the roof replaced in 2011.

Swallow Tail peninsula covered in sea ice.

Ice covered iron eye ring and vegetation.

Icy sign post with Sarah taking photos from below.

Photo taken by Sarah McDonald of sign post.

Frozen sea ice on the railings for the steps.

Ice covered trees near the Sawpit.  No wonder they don't grow branches facing the water.

Windows in the keepers house covered in ice on the outside.

Tattered flag after flying for only two weeks.

Web cameras on Welcome Centre - only two still are working after wind and power outages.

1958 Compared to 2012

The present keepers house was built in 1958 by Joseph McDowell & Son, a local contractor. Fortunately, Elmer Wilcox documented the construction and took this photograph when the keepers house was finished and the original keepers house was still standing. The photograph was taken from the top of the light house.

Original and new keepers houses taken from the lighthouse in 1958.  Photograph taken by Elmer Wilcox

The original keepers house and small outbuildings were torn down and the site levelled. The keepers house did have an ell on it early on but it was removed probably because of wind damage and other difficulties in keeping buildings tight. leading to its deterioration. Soil remediation for lead and bismuth removed much of the soil where the original house was located and left the site more uneven. Some of the brick and concrete foundations still exist but otherwise it is only in photographs and people’s memories, but as you can see little else has changed with the building footprint, other than decks and paths. The door in the north porch (right side of the photograph) was changed soon after the keepers house was built because of the difficulty of opening it during north east gales.

Keepers House and Boat House as seen from the lighthouse in September 2012.  Photograph taken by Ken Ingersoll.

While some new trees have sprouted, the small clump in the background doesn’t look like it has changed in 52 years.  The herring weir has been moved further away from the peninsula and, of course, the fog bell now sits by the keepers house instead of the lighthouse.

Boathouse Gifts

If you haven't been to Swallowtail lately, there are some new additions.  We have two summer students, Geoffrey Hadaway and Robyn Guptill.  They are keeping the building at the top of the hill open daily, the former boat house from the decommissioned Ross Island light house, Fish Fluke Point.  They are greeting visitors and selling a few items to help raise funds to maintain the property, pay the utilities, etc.

 The t-shirts have the same design as the very popular cotton tote bags sold last year for the 150th anniversary.  They are available in four adult sizes and several children's sizes.  There are also matted photographs, notecards, postcards, bookmarks, jars of beach treasures and some used books for sale.

We also have two picnic tables loaned to us from the Anchorage Provincial Park.  One is on the deck and the other is near the stairs.  We do have water for sale and you can bring your picnic lunch and enjoy the view.

Come visit!

Boathouse - Then (2008) and Now (2010)

Here are the stages of progress to restore the southern side of the boat house at Swallowtail up to this point, beginning in 2008 when some thought the building couldn't be saved.  Some work still needs to be done but the building is starting to resume its tidy light station auxiliary building appearance:

Boathouse as it looked April 3, 2008.  The fasteners had rusted away and the wall was coming off in pieces.  One of the wooden doors was missing and there was no glass in any of the windows.  Part of the sill and skirting were missing and the building hadn't seen any paint in many years.

Beginning to tear apart the southern end and add some support to the under structure, September 21, 2009.  This was an emergency repair to try to save the building from blowing down during the very windy winters we experience each year.

The pile of debris accumulates as more of the structure is re-enforced on October 3, 2009. In most places disposing of construction waste is straight forward but at Swallowtail everything has to be carried along the path and up the stairs before reaching the parking area. The doors are being framed in this shot on.

Boarding in the lower portion of the boat house using rough sawn tamarack or larch to match the lumber used to originally build the boat house later in the day on October 3, 2009.

Doing last minute work on the temporary doors for the winter on October 15, 2009.  One of the doors was too short and we were not sure where it was from.  The building was left with tar paper for the winter since the top of the gable end still needed to be stripped and the entire end re-shingled.

Boat house as seen from the ferry November 16, 2009.  The wind is ever present at Swallowtail and nothing is safe from it as it boxes the compass.  Already some tar paper is missing.

Work on the southern end of the boat house began again in November 19, 2010.  However, other work had been done before this such as painting three sides,  replacing the roof shingles, reinforcing the eastern support posts, rebuilding the entrance ramp on the northern side, and updating the wiring.  

New doors were made on site patterned after a photograph taken in 1958.  The doors are uneven with one being half the side of the other.  A window has also been installed over the work bench.  This is the first glass back in the boat house in many years. This window mimics the shape of the window in the bell house that is attached to the light tower.  Returning the cedar shingling has begun November 25, 2010.

By December 9, 2010 despite snow storms and many days of wind, the cedar shingling is almost complete after the old shingles were removed on the gable end and the boards refastened since they had rusted off.  The upper window had been removed to rebuild.  It was a six over six solid window unlike the two lower windows which are six over six casements.  The lower windows need to be started anew since only a small portion remains.  The corner boards were also replaced, copying the rest of the building.  While the corner boards recently had been painted white, in old photographs they were red.  The skirting in recently years had been painted grey, although again in old photographs and under the grey paint, red paint was the choice.

By December 19, 2010 the staging was taken down revealing the new cedar shingles. Once the weather begins to warm, a final coat of red will be given to all surfaces and the cedar shingles will be painted white.  The gable end trim will also be painted red and the upper window returned.  Already there have been positive comments about the red doors.  

Progress at Swallowtail

A lot has been happening at the keepers house and boat house since the early fall.  The buildings are being restored thanks to funding from the provincial government and local fund raising.

The boat house was badly in need of repair because of the southern wall that was largely non-existent but that has now been rebuilt with the last shingles installed. The red doors have been a topic of discussion from those who have looked up from the ferry or from further down the island. We have windows to repair or have built, including some structural work under the western window, a chimney and wood stove to install and a few other small jobs.  The boat house has been completely rewired, a new ramp and hand rail built and new support posts and skirting installed. 

Joe Ingersoll shingling boat house

The keepers house, while on the exterior has been looking much better, has actually been taking a great deal of time.  The major problem has been trying to solve the water leaks.  In a climate where water can be driven up and into buildings, finding areas where the water is entering can be daunting. 

Joe and Ken building boat house ramp >

The wall paper that was put up for the bed and breakfast has been removed, exposing original paint colours, sometimes vibrant colours that were mixed by one of the keepers, Grimmer Ingersoll.  The original footprint for the house is slowly emerging with the removal of partitions installed for the bed and breakfast.  The old windows are getting a facelift with new glazing and glass where needed.  Storm windows will be manufactured in the new year.  Only six original storm windows still exist and these will be copied.  The original front door has been returned after being stored in the boat house.  Doors that are missing from the kitchen cupboards have been built and chrome hardware purchased where it was missing.  Milk glass globes for some of the ceiling light fixtures were purchased at the Habitat ReStore.  While not the same shape, the style matches the era when the keepers house was built. Most wiring issues have been dealt with but some still exist.  It has been a real challenge to keep new shingles on the roof, despite heroic efforts.  The wind shear can be tremendous.

The wind decided that part of the railing on the deck built on the front of the keepers house was not required and the eastern section was "deconstructed", literally blown apart.  It created an entirely different feeling for the deck and with a little work now allows access to the light house rather than having to walk back off the deck and around the house.  While much larger than the original doorstep, the focus is now closer to the original intent with direct access from the keepers house to the light house.

Southern sun porch with original door re-installed.

A big thank you has to be extended to Laurel Hinsdale, daughter of Grimmer Ingersoll, for lending some photographs of the interior of the house taken in the 1960s.  Little details such as the kitchen counter top or ceiling light fixtures have been determined, including a picture of an old cook stove that was in one of the kitchens of the duplex.  A similar stove was purchased from at a local business and will be installed once the kitchen is ready for it.

Because of the long distance to carry material or tools or remove refuse, creativity has been required at times.  Whether walking out or back, seldom are hands empty.  A well stocked tool kit is also emerging so the tool that you need isn't up the 54 steps.

It has been a treat spending so much time at Swallowtail.  Weather conditions are always more extreme but the marine vista is marvellous.  Whales, seals and seabirds are often seen and sometimes land birds such as Bohemian waxwings, gyrfalcon, peregrine falcon, bald eagles and others passing through.  White-tailed deer are often seen on Lighthouse Road.  Snow in the last week or so has changed the landscape and unlike most years, the snow has lingered.

Ken carrying pine along the path from the top of the hill.

Boat house resurrection, continuing project

The boat house next to the keepers house is in need of resurrection. I'm not sure how old the building is but it is definitely over 100 years of age.

We have begun the the slow task with the rebuilding of the southern wall which had become completely derelict with the cladding floating away from the studs. The nails had rusted away from corrosion from the salt spray driven at the building and the doors and windows leaked relentlessly. You know there is major work to do when shingles and boards all come off in a unit. The building will be relatively water tight for the winter and more work will begin again in the spring. We have a long way to go, replacing windows, doors, roof, southern wall, part of sill, skirting, paint, before we can consider possibly returning the winch, skiff, tracks, etc. that made it a working boathouse.

This is what the loading system looked like in 1958 when the new keepers house was being built. It is interesting that the doors were of different width. There appeared to be two platforms that could be winched up the steep hill filled with supplies or loaded with the dory which could also be lifted up the hill. A swinging boom and winch were used to lift the supplies or dory up to the rails since they did not extend to the high water mark.

Looking back through pictures taken in April 2008, there is a section of the wall that had blown off the previous winter in some of the monumental pile of "stuff" removed from the keepers house and boathouse. The boathouse was literally stuffed with none of the construction debris removed from the renovations for the short-lived bed and breakfast.

Here are photos taken since April 2009 of the southern wall. In the first photo, already, one of the doors, the header, part of the wall are gone or ready to collapse.

The next series of photos are the tearing apart and then rebuilding of the door frame and wall in September and October 2009:

The southern end is now relatively weather tight for the winter. Work will begin next spring to finish this side and then address the other issues with the building. The biggest surprise was that the door that had been carefully stored in the boat house was neither the same width nor the same height as the other door. We are not sure where this door was originally. We will have to build at least one new door to replace the short door next year.

There seems to be a never ending amount of material that needs to be removed from the site, as witnessed by these two photos, one from April 2008 and the next from September 2009. The material from 2008 was, of course, hand lifted off the peninsula by a human-chain of volunteers, while the material in 2009 was lifted off by helicopter which took 6 minutes per load. This could not have happened with out the support of all of our volunteers, the Canadian Coast Guard and CleanEarth Technologies who did the lead paint cleanup around the light house and the foundations of the old keeper's house.

We have the paint for this building which was donated and a few bundles of cedar shingles for the southern wall but we will need to replace the roof soon and replace the glass in the windows. The windows and doors in this building have changed greatly over time, either being moved or replaced with different sizes and styles.

Grand Manan follows me across the country

I had to spend 10 days in Calgary recently under less than ideal circumstances. As I was going through some old calendars as part of papers I was sorting, I found a photo of Fish Fluke Point light house, also known as Grand Harbour light house. This building has been abandoned since the early 1960s and still refuses to fall down, although one wonders how long it can remain standing. At one point it was designated as Canada's most endangered light house but still continues to collapse. When you think of how many images could make it on a calendar, it becomes obvious that Grand Manan is a special place in Canada and I certainly had a rush of nostalgia.

The old boat house from this light house was moved in the 1960s to Swallowtail and now sits at the top of the hill. Most people now think the building is a garage, which essentially is what it was used as by the former light keeper Grimmer Ingersoll, who with his brother, towed the boat house to its present location.

I always find it sad to see our "built" history disappear. Soon the only reminder of this light house will be photographs. Hopefully, the Swallowtail light station will be a better example of a community that is trying to preserve some of its history beyond the occasional photograph.