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Point Atkinson Light
by John MacFarlane and Captain Alec Provan 2016
Point Atkinson Light (Photo from the Captain Alec Provan collection. )
Point Atkinson Light (List of Lights 386 G5426) is a white hexagonal tower, red band at top with 6 buttresses. It exhibits Flash 0.25 s; eclipse 0.75 s; flash 0.25 s; eclipse 3.75 s. Year round. Chart:3481
Point Atkinson Light (Photo from the John MacFarlane collection. )
Captain Vancouver recorded that he had named Point Atkinson on Howe Sound (N entrance point to Burrard Inlet, in West Vancouver (municipality), New Westminster Land District) after a "particular friend". The most likely candidate appears to be Thomas Atkinson, RN, who later was the Sailing Master of HMS Victory during the Battle of Trafalgar.
Point Atkinson Light old Fresnel lens in storage (Photo from the John MacFarlane collection. )
References: https://www.notmar.gc.ca/publications/list-livre/pac/p3855-en.php; http://apps.gov.bc.ca/pub/bcgnws/names/9827.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:
MacFarlane, John M. and Captain Alec Provan (2016) Point Atkinson Light. Nauticapedia.ca 2016. http://nauticapedia.ca/Gallery/Light_Pt_Atkinson.php
Site News: December 21, 2024
The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 94,824 vessel histories (with 16,274 images and 13,929 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters).
Vessel records are currently being reviewed and updated with more than 45,000 processed so far this year (2024).
The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,599 entries (with 3996 images).
Thanks to Ray Warren who is beginning a long process of filling gaps in the photo record of vessel histories in the 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 has contributed 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.