Holberg, BC

1974 – The Cape Scott Story - Assorted Sources

Detail by Curt Usherwood

Les Peterson, his book finished, was invited to CFS Holberg in April 1974. I was designated as his escort. My beard, at that time, was for the annual "Rain Festival".

The station was to honour Les with an all ranks military Mess Dinner. The airmen wore dress uniforms with white shirts and black bow ties while the officers were in Mess Dress, medals, and strict decorum.

The sit down dinner was multi course, followed by the usual toats to the Queen, services and regiments of those present, followed by words from the guest, in this case "Les".

Les's plane was a couple of hours late getting into Port Hardy, followed by what was then a two hour drive to Holberg. The cocktail "half hour" went on for over two hours as we waited and waited, not knowing when he'd arrive.

Finally the dinner, the food in poor shape by now, got underway, lasting at least another hour and a half. Lots of wine was poured by the stewards for the many toasts and finally Les rose to speak.

By this time, going on 11 p.m., the last thing that any of the estimated one hundred attendees wanted to hear was a speech about Cape Scott as they were full of food and drink and either in desperate need of a washroom, almost falling asleep, and for some, well they were just plain out and out "smashed". For some stupid reason, it was a "mortal sin" in the military to leave a Mess Dinner table until all, speech included, is finished.

Les stood up and started with a description of the geological beginning of Vancouver Island and just kept talking and talking and talking. I recall writing a note on my napkin to the guy beside me "this is going to be a long night". It was - and what a disaster!

The next day, I drove Les around picking up Jim Cordy and Earle Lincoln and I listened to more history.

Jim Smith, was really "Ken Brunn", an American draft dodger, and a really nice man. He lived in one of Willie Hects cabins on Hansen Lagoon. I stayed in this cabin on one occasion with my son in 1974. It was about a 15 minute walk from the Ground Search cabin located at Hansen Lagoon.

In 1995, at high tide, my wife, daughter and I rowed down there from the GSAR cabin but were unable to find any trace of the cabin. Jim had done some relief at the Cape Scott lighthouse and he went out to Vancouver every now and then, always returning with a different female partner who stayed for various lengths of time.

Jim once carried in some stove pipe for us so one time when we were going up there by helicopter I got a large 20 kilo bag of dry dog food for his cat. Our CO, Lt. Colonel Hodgson, came with us in the chopper just for the ride out and back. We, the Team, got aboard with our gear and one guy with this big bag of dogfood sitting between his legs. The CO kept looking at it, then over at me - obviously puzzled why we would take dogfood. He never asked and I think he was afraid of what the answer would be. When the chopper landed, we got out, waded the river and walked into the woods with a big bag of dogfood. We eventually returned - without the bag. The CO never asked what had happened, and I never told him.

In the form of an epilogue, during the summer of 1998, the Cape Scott lightkeeper told me that Jim Smith was in Nepal teaching monks computer operation.