MAY 17. 2017 VOL. 34. NO.2 West Vancouver Memories West Vancouver Historical Society West Van's Forgotten Lighthouse by John Moir Love them or hate them, if you lived in West Vancouver in the first half of the 20th century, you would have been familiar with the sound of foghorns. At times a scourge to sleep, a godsend to mariners and a vexation to their operators, foghorns were essential to life on the coast. No one in in the Vancouver area heard them more often or more loudly than the people of West Vancouver. From about 1908 to 1969, West Van was bookended by foghorns: one at Point Atkinson and a lesser known one at the mouth of the Capilano River. Most of us remember the sound, but few know the story behind that two-note tune. Foghorns were a Canadian invention, one ironically born out of music. Robert Foulis, a Scottish immigrant in New Brunswick, and an illustrious inventor, came up with the foghorn idea in 1853 while walking home one night, literally in a fog. He noticed that he could hear, from the direction West Van's Coronation Programme, June 2, 1953 page 3 Muriel May and the British Properties page 7 11 pages of EXTRAS continued on page 4 Capilano Fog and Light station, with Baby Mountain (Sentinel Hill) in background. January 1930 -- 2199.WVA.PHO 1