LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER JOBS 2021 TRIAL

“They don’t even describe the concept of the job, so I don’t even know what this job looks like,” she said.

Photo by Justine Etzkornĭeal had a good laugh when reviewing the job posting.

LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER JOBS 2021 TRIAL

Sunset at Trial Island, B.C.: The pay and the work hours for lighthouse keepers aren’t great but the lifestyle is unlike any other. (Canada had 264 staffed lighthouses in 1970, a number that has been whittled down to 51). The colossal mess of a federal employee pay system can be acutely felt by anyone on a lighthouse station where sorting out missed paycheques, over-deposits and maxed-out credit cards with non-existent cellphone service triggers unnecessary stress headaches.Ī person of any age, with access to Google, is likely to unearth stories about lighthouse de-staffing, the push for automation that last ran aground in Canada around 2009, which would be a red flag for would-be applicants looking to plan long term. He had additional concerns, including the federal government’s new pay system, Phoenix, and imagines others would, too. The main way to travel to lighthouses in B.C. The kid factor, Etzkorn said, coupled with an attractive job offer elsewhere - he was making $42,000 as a lighthouse keeper and walked into a $55,000 a year gig - were his chief reasons for leaving. (The policy shift regarding transporting children to remote locations came in response to a fatal Coast Guard helicopter crash in the Arctic in 2013 that claimed three lives, but didn’t involve any children.) Jake Etzkorn is an ex-lighthouse keeper and, at 36, a millennial belonging to that much-maligned tribe that has been scapegoated for everything from getting Chicago Cubs hitting coach Chili Davis fired to killing the sanctity of the Monday-to-Friday, nine-to-five work week.īut, unlike his childhood, lighthouse keepers with children - the Etzkorns have two - are practically excluded from living on any station more than a kilometre offshore, thus limiting their options. Etzkorn, whose parents were lighthouse keepers, recently left the job finding it increasingly difficult to envision a bright future on the lights for himself and his young family. Put simply: What if nobody wants to do the job? Former lighthouse keeper Jake Etzkorn and his son. Still, they can’t help but wonder that the executioner of their livelihood will be apathy, not automation or strapped federal budgets.

It might not be the soundest rational for keeping a profession alive, but the lighthouse keepers, long afraid that automation or an unfavourable political climate would be the death of them, aren’t dead yet. Instead, they issue marine weather reports, perform maintenance on outbuildings, scrub slimy lighthouse steps and keep steely watch for emergencies - and they do happen, occasionally - so they can offer/call for help. More alarming: lighthouse keepers don’t actually turn on the lights. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. But he is part of a greying generation of keepers, a cohort that is swiftly passing into retirement and suspicious that, once they are gone, no one is going to be left or, worse, even interested in replacing them on a job that its detractors say was long ago rendered obsolete. He doesn’t mind cold or grit, and he especially enjoys puttering around in the garden beside the lighthouse. But it isn’t a job for someone who wants to stick their head in a screen all day and whine about needing a cappuccino.” “Everybody is doing a gritty, cold job out here,” he said. Millennials are old news - now it’s Gen Z’s turn to kill industries.Here's why more young women should consider careers in Canada’s manufacturing sector.'The new hip thing': Bankers are leaving secure financial-services careers in droves to join cannabis startups.Article content Recommended from Editorial

Lighthouse keeper jobs 2021