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Merry Island Light
by Captain Alec Provan and John MacFarlane 2016
Merry Island Light (Photo from the Captain Alec Provan collection. )
The Merry Island Lighthouse (List of Lights 449 G5510) and exhibits Flash 0.4 s; eclipse 14.6 s. Year round. Chart:3535. It consists of a square base, with a tower (12 metres (40 feet) in height) rising from the corner of the building. Two red maple leaves, sculpted in relief, add to the visual interest of the lighthouse.
Merry Island Light is located on the SE. extremity of the island in Welcome Passage, between Thormanby Islands and SW side of Sechelt Peninsula, New Westminster Land District.
Merry Island was named for someone with almost no association with the Pacific coast of British Columbia, James C. Merry MP. This British politician was the owner of a racehorse that won the Epsom Derby.
References: http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/progs/lhn-nhs/pp-hl/page01.aspx#bc; https://www.notmar.gc.ca/publications/list-livre/pac/p2652-en.php;
To quote from this article please cite:
Provan, Captain Alec and MacFarlane, John M. (2016) Merry Island Light. Nauticapedia.ca 2016. http://nauticapedia.ca/Gallery/Light_Merry_Island.php; Captain John Walbran British Columbia Coast Names
Site News: April 19, 2024
The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 92,229 vessel histories (with 15,629 images and 13,195 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters). The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,616 entries (with 4,013 images).
In 2023 the Nauticapedia celebrated the 50th Anniversary of it’s original inception in 1973 (initially it was on 3" x 5" file cards). It has developed, expanded, digitized and enlarged in those ensuing years to what it is now online. If it was printed out it would fill more than 300,000 pages!
My special thanks to our volunteer IT adviser, John Eyre, who (since 2021) has modernized, simplified and improved the update process for the databases into a semi–automated processes. His participation has been vital to keeping the Nauticapedia available to our netizens.
Also my special thanks to my volunteer content accuracy checker, John Spivey of Irvine CA USA, who has proofread thousands of Nauticapedia vessel histories and provided input to improve more than 11,000 entries. His attention to detail has been a huge unexpected bonus in improving and updating the vessel detail content.