Naval Leadership in the Twentieth

BOOK REVIEWS David Baird. Northern Lights: Lighthouses of aboard the vessels were saved. [228-229] Canada. Toronto: Lynx Images, 1999.245 pp., Through Baird's photographs, the reader is photographs (black and white, colour), maps, introduced to seldom-seen, isolated references, selected readings, index. CDN lightstations like Bellie Isle, Newfoundland [ $29.95, paper; ISBN 1-894073-09-6. 39-40] and Flat Island, Québec. [161] Images of crumbling lights at Southwest Point, Québec Canada's coasts are dotted with a huge variety [132] and Mohawk Island, Ontario [174] show of lighthouses. From Newfoundland's iron- how destaffing and abandonment has left many clad lights, to the squat wooden harbour bea- lighthouses to deteriorate. cons of the Maritimes and the slender concrete Baird notes that during the past twenty- towers in British Columbia, more than 600 five years "Canada's lighthouses have been structures remain active aids to navigation. changed forever by automation." He acknowl- Although satellite technology and automation edges that the architectural and technical char- have made them less important to mariners, acteristics of lighthouses are "liable to frequent Canada's remaining lighthouses are an impor- change" due to shifts in navigational require- tant element of the nations's maritime history. ments. Although Baird claims that his text David Baird's Northern Lights: Light- describes the current state of lighthouses in houses of Canada is the first book to look at Canada, there are a number of persistent factual navigation beacons across the country. The errors in the book. For example, he consistently author professes a lifelong interest in lights, and incorrectly identifies fog detectors (the beginning with a childhood friendship with the devices used to turn fog horns off and on son of the Partridge Island, NB, lightkeeper. automatically) as "radar-activated sensors" or Later, as a ship's deckboy off the coast of "radar detectors." There is a recurring confu- Australia, Baird says he became "hooked" on sion about Barbier, Rénard et Turenne through- lighthouses. out the book. At least two dozen factual errors In Northern Lights, Baird presents photos detract from the book's usefulness as a refer- and information about more than 200 lights ence tool – construction dates of towers (the across the country, gathered during fifty years venerable Peggy's Cove light in Nova Scotia of research trips. He begins with a brief histori- was not replaced by the current tower in 1979; cal and technical introduction to Canadian it was built in 1915), and sizes of lenses are lighthouses, including types of construction, sometimes incorrect. For instance, the photo of light and foghorn technology and general the Inch Arran light [131] shows a small lens information about keepers and automation. The that could not be of the "2nd Order," as stated remainder of the book is divided into seven in the text. chapters dealing with lights in each province Aside from a need for more careful re- with lighthouses (excepting Manitoba, which search, the author has done a commendable job has one major site). Baird devotes a page or in showing a varied selection of the country's two to each, with photos and general informa- lighthouses. Northern Lights provides a sense tion about the history and characteristics of of the importance of lights in Canada's mari- each lightstation. time history, and Baird's photos are important Baird writes of the hardships of early in preserving the memory of many which are keepers and their families. In 1906, Minnie now gone. Patterson, wife of the Cape Beale, BC keeper, made a gruelling four-hour trek to Bamfield to Chris Mills alert the government ship that a barque was Ketch Harbour, Nova Scotia coming ashore at the lighthouse. All the men 81 82 The Northern Mariner Courtney Thompson. Lighthouses of Atlantic get a more detailed narrative, thanks in part to Canada: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince preservationists, such as the Nova Scotia Edward Island, Newfoundland and Lighthouse Preservation Society, which Labrador, A Pictorial Guide. St. John, NB: provided research in exchange for promoting Quebecor Atlantic, 2000. 128 pp photographs, their work. But Thompson's research misses maps, index, CDN $40, cloth; ISBN 0- the dates of most late twentieth-century lights 9651786-8-4; CDN $30, paper; ISBN 0- and makes errors in sites which hosted several 9651786-7-6. generations of lighthouses, such as the mistaken claim the original 1851 Medway Although thinly populated, Atlantic Canada Head lighthouse survives near the present has some of the richest density of lighthouses tower. The sketch maps are useful for tourists, in North America with over 360 surviving although one would lead a traveller on a long towers, including the continent's oldest drive in the wrong direction, locating the surviving lighthouse on Sambro Island Partridge Island Light on the wrong side of outside Halifax. The stated goal of Courtney Saint John harbour. It remains for someone to Thompson's book is to offer a produce an authoritative history or at least a comprehensive pictorial guide to reliable historical reference for Canadian lighthouses in Atlantic Canada's four lighthouses, which unlike American provinces. Thompson, an American, follows a lighthouses have never been given a historic formula developed with previous pictorial inventory, such as the comprehensive study guides to American lighthouses. After a short carried out by the US National Parks Service. historical introduction she provides colour While the history is sketchy, the book's photographs, snapshot histories, directions and strength is the quality and scope of its photo- location sketch maps for lights, grouped by graphs of lighthouse buildings — a huge num- province. She does not intend to include every ber of sharp, high-quality colour photographs lighthouse, but the 145 lights featured are of almost all the major surviving lighthouses in representative, including almost all the large Atlantic Canada. The photographs, taken by towers and many of the small harbour and the author, along with former lightkeeper Chris range lights. Mills and Newfoundland preservationist Thompson joins several other authors who Wanda Barrett, make the book a fine visual have attempted to combine some history, reference and outshine the photography in coffee-table quality pictures and travel infor- David Baird's volume. Seen collectively, it is mation for lighthouse tourists. Her book suc- clear that Atlantic Canada has a distinct light- ceeds as a fine visual reference, although its house tradition. Unlike the round stonework text falls short of historical standards. Typical lighthouses overwhelmingly found in the of recent pictorial guides, the historical intro- United States and Europe, Atlantic Canadians duction is rudimentary, certainly weaker than chose square and octagonal wooden towers, David Baird's 1999 book on Canadian light- later evolving into octagonal concrete towers. houses, Northern Lights. The text relies on Well suited to the resources and skills of the uncited secondary sources and makes a few region, the elegant simplicity of these towers is blunders, such as confusing the limestone " a rugged triumph of form and function. But Imperial Lights" of the Great Lakes with readers will get few clues as to the past look of lighthouse construction in Atlantic Canada. these stations, since the book makes almost no The historical sketches of individual use of historical images, concentrating instead lighthouses are somewhat better, certainly an on lighthouses which survive today. Those improvement on the many inaccurate profiles seeking beautiful scenery will be also be disap- in another similar book, David Stephens's 1998 pointed, as the focus of this book is the build- Discover Nova Scotia Lighthouses. Although ings themselves rather than their relation to the there is little or no discussion of technology, landscape. Harry Thurston and Wayne builders or architecture, Thompson provides Barrett's 1993 book Against Darkness and the construction date, automation date and Storm still wins out in this respect. navigational role of each light. Certain lights Book Reviews 83 Thompson has digitally altered a fair Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, appear to number of photographs, and readers may have acquired historical lives of their own. The notice the same suspiciously familiar puffy most bizarre example of this phenomenon is white clouds in different images. This fabrica- the way Steven Maffeo actually quotes pas- tion, albeit trivial, unfortunately undermines sages from the novels as "evidence" in his the veracity of already fine photographs and recent book on naval intelligence, Most Secret leads one to wonder if the lighthouses them- and Confidential (London, 2000). selves have been modified. Why has O'Brian managed so far to out- These are interesting times for publishing strip his rivals in the field of naval fiction? a visual record of so many lighthouses. The These two books offer some interesting an- Canadian Coast Guard has neglected many swers. In his short but insightful introduction to historic lights and is seeking to dispose of Persons, Animals, Ships and Cannon, Gary many more, a move opposed by community Brown writes that "O'Brian is also that rare groups seeking to keep lighthouses intact and thing, a genuine polymath (and that even rarer public. One wonders how many lighthouses thing, a polymath with both an angelic pen and will survive for future editions of books such a sense of fun)." O'Brian possessed an encyc- as this. lopaedic knowledge of all aspects life in the Napoleonic era, and it is this breadth and depth Dan Conlin of knowledge that makes his fictional world Halifax, Nova Scotia both believable and endlessly fascinating. It is so fascinating, indeed, that his readers always want to know more. It is to satisfy this Anthony Gary Brown. Persons, Animals, Ships quest that Gary Brown has created his dictio- and Cannon in the Aubrey-Maturin Sea Novels nary – an ambitious listing, with accompanying of Patrick O'Brian.

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