June 1968 - A busy month!

June 1968 was an eventful month. I couldn't have been at the Cape for more than 3 or 4 days when we had our first visitors. The United Church missionary boat, the Thomas Crosby V paid us a call at the beginning of June. Capt. Jack Gosse came ashore with a couple of members of the crew. They brought 2 or 3 NFB films ashore for us to watch. It was a pleasant break from our normal routine to have their company. It was more of a social call rather than a religious one.

I used Kodachrome or Ektachrome slide film in my camera in those days and I'm glad I had the sense to date all of my slides. For that reason, I know that I took my first photos at the Cape on June 5th.

The evening of June 5th, I was in my bedroom listening to Ira Blue's open line program on KGO in San Francisco. All of a sudden a bulletin came in on the wire service. Ira read it -- Robert Kennedy had been shot in Los Angeles. The first report said that he had been shot in the hip but a few minutes later a correction was made that he had been shot in the head. KGO stopped regular programming and switched to the ABC network for live coverage from Los Angeles.

It had been only 4 1/2 years since President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas so the memories of that tragedy were still very fresh in people's minds in 1968. Not only that but it was less than 2 months after the assassination of Martin Luther King.

Robert Kennedy died the next morning but the news was not released until much later in the day. Out of respect, we decided to fly our station flag at half mast.

On Friday evening June 7th after supper, Al and I were in the duplex while Pete was up at the ops building doing his last day shift observation. All of a sudden the doorbell rang! Al said that Pete wasn't the type to come down the hill to play a joke on us like that. I answered the door and three strangers were there. It was Dave Hancock, Hilary Stewart and their assistant John Lyne who decided to stop by during their wildlife expedition.

They stayed with us over that weekend while they took 16mm movies and still photos around the station. Dave even took films of me doing an observation. Actually, it was not a real observation -- it was staged for his film. He took a shot of me coming out of the ops building and opening the Stevenson screen. Then he came in for a closeup of me reading the thermometers and writing the temperatures down in my observer's notebook.

My mother had given me an "emergency survival kit" with needles, threads, buttons, etc. for repairing my clothing. Hancock's crew had come in their Zodiac boat which had a tear that had to be patched up. I lent them my kit so that Hilary could do a needle and thread repair to their craft.

So far we had company come twice within a week. It was taking me some time to fully appreciate how isolated the Cape was.

About a week later the helicopter CGF made its first trip into the Cape after my arrival. The helicopter was a large Sikorsky that could carry over a dozen passengers and plenty of cargo. In fact that was the first time I knew we had a Coast Guard as I read "Canadian Coast Guard" on the helicopter. Two VIP's arrived from Regional Office -- Jack Hamilton, our regional supervisor and Pettigrew from DOT maintenance. Also 4 servicemen arrived, Steve Bartecki the electrician, George Doe the EL-tech with his assistant and a diesel mechanic.

The groceries and mail and also my personal effects arrived, including my Hallicrafters SC40B communications receiver. New Spillsbury-Tyndall radios for lighthouse frequency, a set of Canadiana Encyclopedias and a new stereo record player for the station were also delivered. For me it was my first mail delivery since I had arrived three weeks earlier.

The station ritual involved separating the groceries -- some went to the duplex and the rest went up to the Ops building as there were freezers at both locations. Even our milk was frozen to ensure we had "fresh" milk over the coming month or so. Other deliveries had to be sorted and sent up to the ops. building, the duplex or down to the wharf. After all that we would normally be able to open our personal mail.

On this occasion we had to "entertain" our two VIP visitors who did a brief station inspection and asked us all questions, etc. The helicopter crew never liked staying at the Cape any longer than they absolutely had to because the weather could change very rapidly and could prevent the chopper from being able to take off. Hamilton and Pettigrew were back on the chopper maybe a little more than an hour after their arrival and they left us with the work crew.

We had four workmen to billet. The two EL-techs were put into the two bedrooms in the ops building because they would be working on the radio installation there. The electrician and the mechanic were put up in the west side or "Married" side of the duplex.

Since we now had to cook for 7 people, Pete gave me further cooking instruction and assistance for preparing larger meals when it was my turn to cook.

Most of the crew were reasonably easy to get along with. I particularly liked George Doe , the El-tech because he was also a ham VE7GD. He was an older man with white hair, probably in his sixties.

One person I actually disliked was the diesel mechanic. He was rude, tactless and cranky all the time. One of my days off, I was listening to one of my classical records on the new stereo and he came in and made nasty remarks about how he disliked the music I was playing.

This mechanic was overweight and had a heart condition so he would ride the tramcart up the steep section between the wharf and the duplex. When he wanted a ride up he would ring up the observer on duty and demand that he be pulled up immediately without even saying "please".

Actually, the first time I was called to lower the cart after their arrival and tools and powerhouse parts were loaded, I was not aware that any passengers would be on board as well. In my ignorance, I let the cart down to the dock level quite fast, unaware that Pete and the mechanic were on board. Later Pete came up to the ops building to chew me out for letting the cart go down too fast. "That cart could have derailed and knocked us flying and we'd have kissed our asses goodbye!" Pete continued to inform me of the mechanic's heart condition and we were lucky he didn't have a heart attack.

The lighthouse tender Alexander Mackenzie also known as the Alex Mac came to the Cape on June 27th. This was a much larger and more seaworthy craft than the Skidegate that brought me to the Cape the previous month. The work crew left and was replaced by another work crew -- carpenters headed by Brownsea who I knew from his work at Gonzales. They were here to enlarge the helicopter pad.