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| Triangle Island Lighthouse (unc.edu) |
Triangle Island is a lonely
windswept place that was named after the jagged reefs, with their three-sided geometric form, that surround the island. No trees grow on the island, and there is
minimal vegetation.
The winds blowing across this island
are so strong that it was necessary to attach steel cables to the roofing on
buildings and to anchor the cables in the ground. Ropes were attached between the buildings so
that staff would not be blown away; and even then for safety, at times the
staff found it necessary to crawl across the ground on their stomachs. Staff sequestered inside their homes because
of inclement weather have been known to become sea sick when the winds
violently rocked the houses on their foundations.
During the year 1908, officials from
mainland Canada visited Triangle Island to evaluate the possibility of
establishing a lighthouse and a wireless station on the top of the main
peak. Soon afterwards, prefabricated
buildings and other equipment were shipped to the island, and a steep tramway
was installed from the waterline up the steep incline to the top of the island.
Original planning for the maritime wireless
station called for a 3 kW spark transmitter, and interestingly, a commercial
wireless company also requested a license for their own station on the island
as part of a projected Trans-Pacific network.
However, as subsequent events inform us, the only wireless station ever
installed on this isolated island was the Canadian government station which
began test transmissions on February 17, 1910, under the callsign TLD. That event was right on 106 years ago.
Two or three weeks later, station
TLD was taken into regular service for communication with shipping into and out
of the Inside Passage which separates the Canadian mainland from their island
of Vancouver. Unfortunately though,
because of the high winds, and the often stormy low cloud formations, the
wireless station was unable to communicate adequately with passing ships, and
the ships were unable to discern clearly the light from the lighthouse.
Two years after the Triangle Island
wireless station was commissioned, the roof of the transmitter building was
blown off. That was in 1912; and then
during the following year 1913, the callsign was regularized to VAG.
However at this stage, another
coastal wireless station was installed at Alert Bay on nearby Cormorant Island,
and initially this new station identified with the callsign CFD, though soon
afterwards this too was changed, to VAF.
When station VAF at Alert Bay was taken into regular service, station
VAG on Triangle acted merely as a wireless relay station.
During World War 1, the Triangle
station was guarded by military troops; and give half a dozen more years, and
both the lighthouse and the wireless station were closed. Inefficiency of operation due to adverse
weather conditions, the cost of operating these services at a difficult and
isolated location, and harsh living circumstances for the operating personnel
were cited as the major reasons for closing the Triangle service and
transferring its activities to a more amenable locality.
The wireless station on Triangle
Island was closed in 1921, and this maritime service was transferred to a new
wireless station at Bull Harbour on nearby Hope Island. The callsign VAG was also transferred from
Triangle Island to Bull Harbour.
Then a score of years later, and
this second VAG station was moved and rebuilt half a mile down the same road,
but it did not survive there either. In
1990 VAG was sold off, and the maritime wireless service was transferred to the
Alert Bay station VAF. But that didn’t survive for long either. Four years later (and that was in 1994)
station VAF was closed, and all of the maritime communication services for the
whole area were transferred to Comox Radio down the coast on Vancouver
Island.
These days, Triangle Island may be
visited as an inhospitable tourist attraction; and some of the artifacts from
its earlier history are now on display in a local museum on Vancouver Island.
(AWR-Wavescan/NWS 364 via Adrian Peterson)
