Remembering the Watch: A Lightkeeper’s Tale from the Rugged Coasts of Newfoundland in Canada

Isolation, beauty, danger, rescues—Barry Porter’s two decades as a lighthouse keeper on Newfoundland’s remote coasts had its dull moments and its adventures.

He had time to do things. He spent several months rehabilitating a paralyzed beagle. He half-tamed an arctic fox.

He’s known the fear of becoming polar bear prey. He’s risked life and limb on rough seas in the middle of winter.

He’s part of a dwindling tradition of lightkeepers who have kept countless sailors safe for millennia. When he started in 1983, it threatened to be a career with no future.

“I’ve seen some of the best equipment in the world fail, and the backup systems fail,” Porter said. “I still feel that at certain locations … a lightkeeper perched on the cliff with a set of binoculars is far better than any computer.”

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Hunters in that region walk out miles on the ice to hunt seals. A few dozen hunters were out there that March day in 1987.

“It was a beautiful sunny day, not a draft of wind—and then something changed outside. The ice started to break away from the rocks,” he said. “When you’re standing on the ice yourself, a couple miles out amongst this rough, rugged ice, you’re not aware of it, you can’t see it happening.”

He watched as the crack spread 50 metres, 200 metres, a kilometre. He ran down the stairs of the light tower to the controls of a giant foghorn on the ground level. He flipped switches and waited for the air compressor to build up enough pressure to sound a blast that could be heard some 15 kilometres out.

He blasted the foghorn five times. It was a sound with such urgency, so penetrating, that Porter himself felt the terror of it.

In was enough to warn the hunters. Back up in the tower with his binoculars, he watched as they hurried for the shore. He went to a nearby cove where some of them had come ashore and they told him that they had run into a gap in the ice the size of a lake. They had to board an ice raft to get across it.

“They thanked me for firing off the foghorn,” Porter said. “The foghorn saved people’s lives there, probably, and a human being had to be there to do that. That’s not something that a computer chip is going to do.”

Porter helped many others over the years, including a ship whose pilot got lost in rough seas late one night. He guided him via radio into a safe port.

Porter developed a keen eye even without his binoculars, and that helped him make an off-duty rescue once. He spotted some kids in a lake who were in danger of drowning. No one else had realized they were in trouble, he said, but he saw them because his eyes are trained to spot trouble on the water.

Usually the crew change is done with a helicopter, but no helicopter was coming for them in that weather. It was a 30-kilometre ride on open ocean by boat, and it wasn’t likely anyone was coming by boat either. But their replacements knew how important it was to them to get home for Christmas, and they hired a local boater with enough skill and courage to make the trip.

“It was a northeast wind, probably 60–80 mile-an-hour wind, and it was a big sea,” Porter recalled. “At Surgeon Cove Point Lighthouse, there is no wharf, there’s no dock. It’s on the edge of a cliff and you got to just jump.”

He knew if he didn’t time it just right, he’d end up in the freezing cold ocean amid huge swells.

The boat was rising and falling some four to six kilometers, Porter said. The rocks were icy and treacherous. The replacement workers threw their supplies up for Porter and his partner to catch, then jumped ashore themselves. He waited for the boat to rise to its peak, and made the jump.

It wasn’t exactly “by the book”—it flouted all the safety regulations—but “it was just something we had to do and lightkeepers did it all around the island back then.”

“Thankfully, I got home for Christmas to my wife and my little boy,” he said.

Porter’s daughter was born the following year. He found it hard being away from his children so much as they grew up. But on the other hand, he said, he was available for them 24/7 every other month when he was at home.

The job had its tradeoffs in many ways.

The scenery included icebergs, rugged cliffs, snowy owls, and minke whales. Polar bears sometimes came around, and he recalled the nervous business of going outside for some of his duties when a polar bear had been spotted nearby. He saw tracks, but luckily never had a close encounter.

Rehabilitating a Dog, Feeding a Fox

Porter often had his beagle, Gypsy, with him for company. Gypsy filled his time for the better part of one of his years as a lightkeeper when she got a slipped disc in her back and became paralyzed.

The lighthouse was built in 1876 and is a heritage site that draws tourists. Porter recalled how Gypsy stole the show, with tourists often paying her more attention than the lighthouse and the icebergs.

Porter massaged Gypsy



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