Cape Mudge Lighthouse

A few years before author Jim Gibbs passed, he gifted me his lighthouse research. Jim had authored a number of books on the lighthouses of the Pacific Coast. He had planned to publish a book on the lighthouses of British Columbia and was well into writing it when Donald Graham published his two books on the lighthouses of British Columbia. Jim abandoned the BC lighthouse book and moved on to other projects. Being one of the kindest men and authors I had ever met, Jim did not want to steal or lessen Graham's accomplishment as a lighthouse keeper turned author.

Me with Jim Gibbs at his home in Yachats, Oregon. This was about 2008. His dachshund was named Tinker. Jim had taken me to his back yard to show me where his wife's ashes were spread. Behind us you can see Jim's Cleft of the Rock Lighthouse. (Photo by Jessica DeWire)

I am lucky to have Jim's draft notebook for his planned BC lighthouse book, wherein he hand-wrote profiles of BC lighthouses. Below, I'm sharing Jim's profile of Cape Mudge Lighthouse on Quadra Island. Note how neat his handwriting was on these pages and how few cross-outs and changes he had made at this point. He could, without much effort, produce nearly final-copy quality in his writing on first draft. I envy him for that! Jim never used a computer. His books were handwritten and then submitted in typed format, using an electric typewriter, and mailed or delivered in person to his publisher. Were he writing today, it would need to be a digital file. (So much has changed in recent years. Can you believe I rarely meet my editors and publishers! We communicate by email ans DropBox.)

Enjoy these pages from Jim's hand. (Use the horizontal and vertical slide bars to see the entire page.) I have added some captioned images from my trip to Cape Mudge Lighthouse about a decade ago.

Relief lightkeeper Milt McGee who lived on station while another keeper took leave. Below he is with me at the light station.

Milt McGee doing "the weathers" at the lighthouse. Weather was reported in to Victoria every four hours. Most of the equipment was inside this box.

The electric foghorns at Cape Mudge in the early 2000s.

One of the lighthouse's decommissioned optics was on display inside the base of the lighthouse. I photographed it through a window. It was a Crouse Hinds beacon.

This map shows the location of Cape Mudge Lighthouse on Quadra Island in the Georgia Strait.