Many North Island communities are saddened by the news of the fire at Telegraph Cove on Dec. 31, 2024 as images of the blaze consuming the historic mill building that housed a pub, restaurant, tour operator offices, and the Whale Interpretive Centre were startling.
The structure, over a century old, may not seem old by most standards, but for a coastal landscape that is known to swallow up any abandoned building in a matter of years, this was old.
Telegraph Cove is a rare reminder of early industrial life on the coast.
In 1909, Alfred Marmaduke 鈥淒uke鈥� Wastell and his wife, Mary Elizabeth 鈥淢ame鈥� Sharpe, were living in New Westminster when Duke was recruited to manage a struggling box-making factory in Alert Bay, also known as 鈥榊alis. It was to make the shipping boxes for the cannery operated by BC Fishing and Packing Co. The family packed up their nine-year-old son, Fred, and moved north by steamship.
鈥榊alis, with a population of 230, was made up primarily of First Nations people living on reserve. Among its residents were also a few Japanese and Chinese workers at the fish-packing plant and cookhouse and a small number of settlers employed in the factory and logging industry. The town was a hub of economic activity, driven by its booming fishing and logging industries.
Logging operations dotted the coastline, but getting timber to market was difficult. Communication with Vancouver and Victoria markets was only by boat and often relied on the weekly steamship visits, leaving valuable logs waiting in bays.
In 1912, the federal government began constructing a telephone and telegraph line stretching from Campbell River to Northern Vancouver Island. At that time, 鈥榊alis served as the headquarters for commercial interests, and the superintendent of telegraphs wanted to set up a telegraph station nearby.
Duke suggested Beaver Cove, approximately six miles south of 鈥榊alis, with a small, sheltered cove as an ideal location. When asked what it should be called, Duke proposed 'Telegraph Cove.'
The first linesman, Bobby Cullerne, moved into a small shack on the beach, tasked with maintaining the telegraph line. The lines, strung from tree to tree, were often damaged by falling trees in the frequent storms, requiring Cullerne to patrol the shoreline by boat and trek inland for repairs when lines went dead.
There was not much activity in Telegraph Cove for many years. Duke did acquire almost 400 acres of waterfront along the cove in exchange for repayment of a debt. He bought the timber lease on the land and intermittently logged it over the years.
By 1922, Duke partnered with several Japanese associates to establish a chum salmon saltery. Unlike sockeye and coho, chum salmon were not widely used by canneries, making them economical for salting and exporting to Japan. A small sawmill was built to produce shipping boxes, but when payments from Japan failed to materialize, the operation collapsed leaving the sawmill idle and the saltery operating intermittently.
At the time, Duke and his son, Fred Wastell, were still comfortably employed in Alert Bay鈥檚 box-making factory鈥擠uke as manager, Fred handling the books. However, their futures changed in 1928 when BC Packers switched from wooden to cardboard shipping boxes, rendering the factory obsolete. Fred and 40 others lost their jobs.
Being suddenly unemployed, Fred decided to revive the idle sawmill in Telegraph Cove in 1929. He enlisted his uncles to help with repairs and soon constructed worker housing, a water system, and a small generating plant. Joined by his childhood friend and former employees from the box factory, Fred reopened the mill, offering 25 cents an hour in wages. A former seine boat was repurposed for towing logs and delivering lumber.
Fred had married Emma McCoskrie, one of the nurses at the hospital in Alert Bay in 1928. With a one-year-old child, they moved into a three-room shack perched on the bluff overlooking the harbour in Telegraph Cove.
Emma adapted to the conditions of coastal life鈥攐utdoor plumbing, a sawdust-burning stove, and intermittent electricity from a ten-horsepower generator. Below their home, the salmon saltery occasionally operated, filling the air with the stench of rotting fish, compelling Emma to keep the windows shut tight.
Like many communities on the coast, household chores required hard work. Perishables were stored in screened safes, clothes were ironed with stove-heated irons, rugs were taken outside to be beaten free of dust, and fir floors were cleaned by scattering damp newspaper shreds on the floor which were then swept up with the dirt that clung to them.
Rainy days meant drying laundry indoors, forcing the family to duck beneath wet sheets hanging from ceiling racks. Meals were prepared on a sawdust stove that struggled to keep hot when burning wet hemlock, which was often.
Houses in the cove experienced electricity only until 11 p.m., after which the engulfing darkness of the coast left residents reaching for oil lanterns. Pat Wastell Noris, Fred's daughter, humorously noted, 鈥淥ur house, like all the others in the community, had been wired by amateurs. Even my father鈥檚 optimistic nature suggested that sleeping occupants were safer without power coursing through this haphazard electrical work.鈥�
Despite the hard work, Telegraph Cove grew into a close-knit and thriving community. The sawmill remained the town鈥檚 backbone for decades but eventually closed in 1980. By then there was a new kind of economic activity at the cove, and a new generation of residents. Nature as tourism, rather than as a source of market commodities began with the first whale-watching company stationed in the cove.
The fire at Telegraph Cove in December 2024 was a stark reminder of how easily the connections to our past can be lost. However, the community鈥檚 determination to rebuild in the same historic style offers hope that these links to history will endure. Telegraph Cove鈥檚 story is one of adaptation and perseverance, from its early days as a small telegraph station to its journey into a bustling community.
