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Discovery Island Light
by Captain Alec Provan and John MacFarlane 2016
The Original Beacon Housing from the Discovery Island Light (Photo from the John MacFarlane collection. )
Discovery Island Light Plaque (Photo from the John MacFarlane collection. )
Discovery Island Light (List of Lights 216 G5334) is located off Oak Bay, just E of Victoria on the extremity of the island, on Haro Strait. It is a White cylindrical tower with red top exhibiting Flash 0.1 s; eclipse 4.9 s. Year round. Chart:3424 Edn 10/15(P15-070).
Named after Captain Vancouver’s ship the Discovery, probably by Captain Kellett, HMS Herald, who surveyed a portion of these waters when on the station in 1846.
Discovery Island Light (Photo from the Captain Alec Provan collection. )
References: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office; Walbran, John T; British Columbia Coast Names, 1592-1906: their origin and history; Ottawa, 1909 (republished for the Vancouver Public Library by J.J. Douglas Ltd, Vancouver, 1971); https://www.notmar.gc.ca/publications/list-livre/pac/p180-en.php; https://www.notmar.gc.ca/publications/list-livre/pac/p180-en.php;
To quote from this article please cite:
Provan, Captain Alec and John MacFarlane (2016) Discovery Island Light. Nauticapedia.ca 2016. http://nauticapedia.ca/Gallery/Light_DiscoveryIsland.php
Site News: August 18, 2024
The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 93,618 vessel histories (with 15,919 images and 13,842 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters). The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,620 entries (with 4,020 images).
In 2023 the Nauticapedia celebrated the 50th Anniversary of it’s original inception in 1973 (initially it was on 3" x 5" file cards). It has developed, expanded, digitized and enlarged in those ensuing years to what it is now online. If it was printed out it would fill more than 300,000 pages!
My special thanks to our volunteer IT adviser, John Eyre, who (since 2021) has modernized, simplified and improved the update process for the databases into semi–automated processes. His participation has been vital to keeping the Nauticapedia available to our netizens.
Also my special thanks to my volunteer content accuracy checker, John Spivey of Irvine CA USA, who has proofread thousands of Nauticapedia vessel histories and provided input to improve more than 11,000 entries. His attention to detail has been a huge unexpected bonus in improving and updating the vessel detail content.