Cape Mudge Lighthouse

Another dark and dreary photo of something on Quadra Island.  This time the lighthouse at Cape Mudge, on the southern tip of the island - the entrance to the Discovery Passage. 

There is some very treacherous water in this area:  rocks, reefs and turbulent tides, as well as the stormy weather conditions mostly in the Fall and Winter

Cape Mudge has seen its share of shipwrecks, including the 'Cottage City' which went down, on January 26, 1911, thirteen years after the light station was established. Lightkeeper John Davidson, a fiercely independent Scotsman, was pumping his hand fog horn in blinding snow and heavy fog, when the 'Cottage City', unable to get a bearing on Cape Mudge crashed onto a rocky reef two miles south of the light.

Davidson guided the lifeboats to safety by waving a white flag on the beach. The snow was so deep the passengers, including the fourteen women and a four-year-old child on the first lifeboat, had to hike along the beach, after landing in a sheltered cove, to reach the warmth of the lighthouse. Davidson and his wife gave the passengers hot food and put them up for the night, with some housed in the lantern room, until a steamer picked them up the next day.

My sister, Carol, on the driftwood-strewn beach