Cape Beale Light

Cape Beale Lighthouse (List of Lights 176 G5256) SE. point of Barkley Sound entrance on the west coast of Vancouver Island, 60 metres above the Pacific Ocean. It is a Red trapezoidal skeleton tower, white rectangular day mark on 3 sides. It exhibits Flash 0.2 s; eclipse 4.8 s. Year round on Chart:3671

Cape Beale Light (Photo from the Captain Alec Provan collection. )

Keepers: Robert Westmoreland (1874–1878), Emanuel Cox (1878–1894), Thomas Patterson (1895–1908), William Lowell Thompson (1908–1911), John Shirly Richardson (1911–1913), Harold Ward (1914–1917), J. Lowe (1918–1920), Art Gordon (1920–1923), Philip Gresley Cox (1923–1931), Robert Edward Pilcher (1931–1941), Jonathan Allardice Fleming (1941–1946), Douglas Howard Franklin (1946–1951), Alex D. Thomson (1963–1982), Norbert Brand (1982–2010), Karen Zacharuk (2010–2015).

Cape Beale Light from offshore on a nice day. (Photo from the Steve Henley collection. )

Cape Beale is named in 1787 by Captain Barkley, after John Beale, purser of the trading ship Imperial Eagle. It was adopted 3 April 1934 on C.327, as labelled on British Admiralty Chart 592, 1862 et seq.

References: http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/progs/lhn-nhs/pp-hl/page01.aspx#bc; https://www.notmar.gc.ca/publications/list-livre/pac/p66-en.php; http://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=1199; 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); BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office;

In 2019 Blake Logan shared some images from the early days of the light. He wrote "I scanned these in 2009 from a scrapbook owned by Patrick Cox (1917-2003), the son of the keeper Philip Cox (1878–1941), I was told Philip died in 1941 at Trial Island Light (1931–1941) off Victoria. He had also served time at Ballenas Island (1921–1922), and Cape Beale (1923–1931) (where his father in law had died in 1925 of a heart attack). "

Philip Cox, Keeper at the Cape Beale Light with children Gres, Lorna and Patrick (Photo from the Blake Logan collection. )

The Cox children at Cape Beale Light with their famous dog "Bill the Collie" (Photo from the Blake Logan collection. )

The Cox children playin in the lagoon near Cape Beale Light (Photo from the Blake Logan collection. )

The Keeper of Cape Beale Light and his brother. (Photo from the Blake Logan collection. )