Qualla: Carmanah Point Light Station

Carmanah Point Light Station: Introduction

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Beauregard from Nunavut, Canada, CC BY 2.0. Jerry K. Etzkorn became the keeper of Carmanah Point Light Station in 1986 and stayed for thirty years. His successor, Justine J. Etzkorn, took over in 2016. For three decades, a single family watched the Pacific from a concrete tower on Vancouver Island's southwest coast, at the exact point where the Strait of Juan de Fuca opens into the ocean. Then, on October 25, 2024, the Etzkorns and every other keeper were told to leave. The ground they stood on, the Canadian Coast Guard announced, could no longer be trusted to hold them.

Image: Mike Beauregard from Nunavut, Canada | CC BY 2.0

Carmanah Point Light Station: Guardian at the Strait's Mouth

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Beauregard from Nunavut, Canada, CC BY 2.0. The Carmanah Point Light Station was established in 1891 to mark one of the most critical navigational junctures on the Pacific coast: the entrance from the open ocean into the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Salish Sea beyond. Ships rounding Vancouver Island's southwest corner --...

Image: Mike Beauregard from Nunavut, Canada | CC BY 2.0

Carmanah Point Light Station: William Phillip Daykin's Watch

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Beauregard from Nunavut, Canada, CC BY 2.0. The first keeper, William Phillip Daykin, arrived in 1891 and served for twenty-one years. During his tenure, the coast earned its reputation as the Graveyard of the Pacific through a series of devastating wrecks, culminating in the Valencia disaster of 1906. Daykin and his succe...

Image: Mike Beauregard from Nunavut, Canada | CC BY 2.0

Carmanah Point Light Station: The Ground Gives Way

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Beauregard from Nunavut, Canada, CC BY 2.0. In the summer of 2024, Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Canadian Coast Guard delivered a verdict that ended 133 years of continuous human presence: the ground beneath Carmanah Point Light Station was seismically unstable. The Cascadia subduction zone lies just offshore, and th...

Image: Mike Beauregard from Nunavut, Canada | CC BY 2.0

Carmanah Point Light Station: Concrete, Still Standing

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Beauregard from Nunavut, Canada, CC BY 2.0. The 1920 concrete tower continues to operate as an automated aid to navigation. The heritage buildings surrounding it remain under the care of Fisheries and Oceans Canada. Hikers on the West Coast Trail, which runs directly past the station, can still see the tower from the trail...

Image: Mike Beauregard from Nunavut, Canada | CC BY 2.0