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Porlier Pass Light

by Captain Alec Provan and John MacFarlane 2016

Porlier Pass Light (Photo from the Captain Alec Provan collection. )

Porlier Pass Light (List of Lights 288 G5394) is located on Race Point, Galiano Island between Galiano and Valdes Islands, SE of Nanaimo, Cowichan Land District. It is a white cylindrical tower, lt year round.

There is a range light in association with the lighthouse on a white square tower. It exhibits 196° 07’ 445.2m on Chart: 3473

Porlier Pass was named Named in 1791 by Jose Maria Narvaez, commanding the Spanish schooner "Saturnina." Incorrectly spelled Portier for many years. The name was adopted 11 May 1905.

References: https://www.notmar.gc.ca/publications/list-livre/pac/p2652-en.php; http://apps.gov.bc.ca/pub/bcgnws/names/16214.html; BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office; Walbran, John T; British Columbia Coast Names, 1592-1906: their origin and history; Ottawa, 1909 (republished for the Vancouver Public Library by J.J. Douglas Ltd, Vancouver, 1971);

To quote from this article please cite:

Provan, Captain Alec and John M. MacFarlane (2016) Porlier Pass Light. Nauticapedia.ca 2016. http://nauticapedia.ca/Gallery/Light_Porlier_Pass.php

Site News: February 12, 2025

ANOTHER MILESTONE REACHED

The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 95,146 vessel histories (with 16,409 images and 14,064 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters).

The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,599 entries (with 4000 images).

My thanks to Ray Warren who is beginning a long process of filling gaps in the photo record of the vessel histories in the vessel database. Ray has been documenting the ships of Vancouver Harbour for more than 60 years.

Thanks to contributor Mike Rydqvist McCammon for the hundreds of photos he continues to contribute to illustrate British Columbia’s floating heritage.

My very special thanks to our volunteer IT adviser, John Eyre, who (since 2021) has modernized, simplified and improved the update process for the databases into semi–automated processes. His participation has been vital to keeping the Nauticapedia available to our netizens.

Thanks to John Spivey who is beginning his 4th year of fact checking all of the entries in the vessel database.

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