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June 1999 West Vancouver Historical Society Page 5 COMmG EVENTS WEST VANCOUVER HISTORICAL SOCIETY NEXT GENERAL MEETING WEDNESDAY, June 23rd, 1999 at 7:00 pm At the West Vancouver Seniors' Centre, 695 21st Street, West Vancouver Speaker - Raymond Crome RE:Discovery 2000 (Retracing the Voyage of Capt George Vancouver in 1792) DATE OF THE NEXT GENERAL MEETING WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22ND, 1999 POINT ATKINSON: RESIDENCE & UGHT TOWER, CIRCA 1925 PHOTO: DON GRAHAM (Cont'd from page 4) James Delgado has volunteered to translate our ambitions into a comprehensive business plan, one which will specify goals, costs and timetables and provide background for fundraising and involving public and private interests in the project. Some day soon. Park visitors will make their way down the road and along an upgraded trail via the eastern shoreline to the searchlight bunker with its commanding view of Vancouver Harbour. A boardwalk will lead to the dock and boathouse area and the lighthouse, restored to a condition typical of any isolated west coast lightstation prior to 1970. The experience will, in fact, be much as if one has hiked a short section of the West Coast trail which leads to Pachena Point. The original 3rd order Fresnel lens will be up in the beacon room again, its lead crystal prisms sweeping the horizon with four spokes of light. The airchime horns will once again pulsate with the two-toned voice of Vancouver harbour. The radio room will appear as it did when keepers spent their night watches there, with dated tube-powered radio and calibration beacons, head-sets, call manuals and charts. It will feature a restored and functional weather reporting station. The lower lawn area will display a range of aids to navigation artifacts including fog-bells, whistles, acetylene buoys and other beacon rooms alongside the blast-proof concrete blockhouse poured in 1939 to house generators for the searchlight, barracks and battery. Another boardwalk will connect with the foundation of the original fog alarm building overlooking the bay just west of the station, where Vancouver's oldest industrial artifact - the steam boiler -lies rusting away in the bush. The scenario will take some time and effort to achieve, and requires close co-operation between three levels of government and First Nations. Our Society, however, remains confident it will all come about. We are all on the same side. When the Hon. David Anderson, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans called a halt to further destaffing of our lightstations in April 1998 he dismissed widespread concerns for safety, claiming he made the decision instead out of a firm belief that "Lightstations are an important part of Canada's heritage". In BC, Point Atkinson will one day be the most important of all.