‘We’re losing eyes on the coast’: death of Canadian lightkeeper casts doubt on future of shoreside guardians | Canada

S.NA is cloudy but quiet in April, a helicopter landed on a series of remote islands off the Pacific coast of British Columbia. One person goes away; Two others climbed on the plane and the plane rose to the sky.

The only man made his way towards the triple of the island’s triple, an octagonal concrete tower that broke out from three islands. Rocky Cluster is located with Barnacles, Rockweed and Algae, and it is in the middle of the road in the middle of the western coast in Canada, and it is a notorious famous due to its striking storms, heavy fog and hostile water.

Among the lists of lighting tasks working at the station, known to the local population as “The Rock” or “Little Alcatraz”, is to submit weather reports every three hours.

But on that spring day, the first report never came.

The crew has repeatedly tried to raise the lighthouse guard on various naval radio channels and his mobile phone, but all efforts were silent.

“The lighting has a perfect record in their timing,” said Jim Abram, former head of the Lighting Union. “If they lose a report, it is in an emergency.”

Fear was sent in and a helicopter from Langara Station, 20 minutes away. When the crew fell, they confirmed their worst fears: I am died of joy.

Abram said: “You never die with a light station with only one person. Never.” “But this is what happened. The other three guards present at that station are only destroyed and left with many questions – and most of them will never know the answer to it because, on all the common sense, there was only one person on that island.”

The death of the goalkeeper, whose name has not been released, has pushed questions about the safety place in the workplace, and the group of the cohesive siblings tightly shook-and fears are renewed to get rid of employees. When the death investigation is revealed, those who served “eyes and ears” will be used in remote pockets in the country’s accident as an excuse to automate another beacon, which exposes people to a greater risk in an indefinite environment and cannot be implemented.

Of the 750 beacons spread throughout Canada, many of which were first built in areas where safe movement was a challenge, as stations served as handrails against the disaster.

“They have become symbols of a specific place and take meanings in a deep way like your domestic memory,” said Kate Power, a doctoral researcher at the University of Toronto. “Increasingly, we link them to a past era and for this reason, they tend to provide this purpose. But we forget that they were previously part of a large technological system directed towards the modernization of Canada from the coast to the coast.”

In recent decades, a global boost to modernize safety and maritime navigation has increased, as it has been replaced by inhabited functions with automatic warning systems – and provoking a fierce battle on the purpose of technology. One of the great factors in removing employees is the cost associated with maintaining human presence in a short -time focus.

The Coast Guard in Canada says that it is not aware of any evidence that unlocked light stations increase the dangers of sailors and indicate a number of countries that rid their light stations. US 10 lighthouse showed For the public in 2023 – either to be sold in a public auction or given it for free – after identifying modern technology means that it was longer for navigation.

Of the hundreds of beacons in Canada, only 51 years are still. Nearly half of these are on the Pacific Coast of the British Columbia, a region that can not be accessed only by boat and air. as a result of, The guards at these stations often have roles beyond their basic responsibilities, as they act as weather and rescue workers. They separated both Drug capacity And the episodes that follow man after discovering suspicious pride and alerting authorities during environmental disasters.

“The fear of losing guards is a fear that we will lose those eyes on the coast. They are often the first line of defense – and the only – for something that happens in a very silent part of the country.”

When a plane or vehicle is disrupted, the tragedy is often due to the operator’s mistake. Humans are fatigue, and they spend and fail. Increasingly, the solution is to automate jobs, both to save money and because of the assumption that devices can complete the task better. But as society pushing to increase automation, there is an increasing fear that there will be a blanket of technology in the form of algorithms and machine learning is not always a clear cost or efficiency.

Power notes that previous automation payments have been justified in terms of potential savings, but they have sparked a vital recovery from the guards who say they are in an indispensable role.

He said: “The lighting holders argued that you cannot replace the human ability to distinguish the way the clouds move or the way the air is emitting.”

The four -storey tower monitors the Cape Modge beacon, with its twin fog and windows covered with minor decorative diseases, monitors the nearby Simore, which Mariner George Vancouver described as “one of the most severe water extensions in the world.”

Abram, who spent more than two decades as Cape Modge Lite Renkebar, says that the surrounding sea can quickly deteriorate into “very horrific” conditions in the form of permanent waves, tidal and islands, rotation and backgrounds. He was also the main architect behind a very organized battle that eventually stopped the previous round of disposal of employees in the nineties, and in recent years Distinguished counterparts Where the West Bank saved the life of the boats in distress.

During his time in Cape Mudge, ships were calling the lighthouse to get accurate descriptions in the actual weather because the conditions reflected on the graphs were already old.

“You get all kinds of chaotic water that is not captured by any kind of tool. Nothing has invented it can capture anything from this. The only thing that can be eyes and human ears.” “The captain of the ship will take this as a gospel – because they know that we know.”

Meanwhile, sensitive weather control equipment-and a lighthouse itself-can form a very difficult thing to fix it in such remote areas.

Abram refers to a recent incident after a station on Vancouver is arrested last summer. Days after removing the crews, the strong lighthouse failed. The efforts made to repair light were thwarted by thick fog that prevented helicopters from accessing the site.

“You have a helicopter of $ 5,000 per hour that fly up to five technicians, who are very driven to do something simple such as repairing a nude wire or a burning lamp. Small things [a] “It can take it within a few days or weeks because the weather prevents the crews from reaching unknown sites,” he said.

A Canadian Senate report From 2010, I found that the cost savings of the remaining beacons automated were minimal, given the scope of the risks that were presented. The report also I found a number of other benefits for using lighting tools, who can take valuable readings for local environments, including daily temperature test and sea salinity test along with detailed marine wildlife census.

“The opinions that we heard on both coasts were supporting the guards.” “This is what we recommend unanimously.” The Senate Committee found that although most developed countries have pushed forward with the removal of employees, others, including Ireland and Australia, have returned their guards to some stations.

In Canada, while the pace of employee removal slowed down, it did not stop.

Last year, the Coast Guard said it would remove employees from both Carmanah Point and Pachena Point Light on Vancouver, on the pretext that the Earth was unstable. Recently, the shortage of employment meant a number of stations – including the nearby Langara Point beacon – was kept by one person.

The Coast Guard and Al -Ittihad, which represents lighting tools publicly refused, referring to the continuous nature of the investigation.

Critics to get rid of employees fear that death in Triple Island will be a useful pretext for removing human presence from the station. Since the investigation of the accident began in early April, none of the island’s employees.

“I have been worried for a long time from Triple Island and the decisive role you play in maritime safety, and the loss of its employees,” Abram said. “Is our bigger fear come true? I am worried about it.”