A Watch in the Night: The Story of Pomquet Island's Last Lightkeeping Family.

Randall White is the author of Voice of Region: On the Long Journey to
Senate Reform in Canada, Too Good to Be True: Toronto in the 1920s, and
Global Spin: Probing the Globalization Debate.

The author’s mother, Thelma, was the first of six children of George and Ruth Millar, keepers of the light on the tiny spit of land called Pomquet Island, located in St. George’s Bay, Nova Scotia, just west of the Strait of Canso. For 36 years (1924–1960), the Millars lived on the island year-round (except for the final two), keeping in daily contact (by way of a small rowboat) with the nearby Bayfield wharf. There, George kept and operated a lobster boat. This account is based on the published and unpublished memoirs of their six children, all of them raised on the island. Author Ruth Edgett says in her short introduction that this is not intended as a “definitive lighthouse history nor is it meant as a precise memoir of the Millar family. Rather it is a partly factual partly fictional story .…”

Be that as it may, she has captured the essence of the challenging lives of this remarkable family through a skilful mix of lively dialogue and chair-gripping descriptions of some events, such as narrowly escaping with their lives while crossing the spongy ice on their way to town. Or the traumatic and near tragic occasion on which 14-year-old Malcolm was cutting hay when his horse and the raker suddenly plunged down a steep embankment that had been eroded by the high winter tides. Malcolm escaped with a few scratches, but his father later had to dispatch the severely injured animal using a borrowed rifle. This taciturn veteran of Vimy Ridge and Passchendale would have nothing to do with firearms once he returned unscathed from that terrible conflict.

In many ways, the centrepiece of this tale is Ruth Mitchell, who somehow made do with only the barest of necessities, yet saw her six children safely through to adulthood and rewarding careers and marriages. The text is supplemented by occasional marginal inserts and chapter headings from one or other family member recalling some event. Also included are delightful snapshots—16 in all—mostly of the children but a couple of the lighthouse, which was demolished after George finally retired. This study will remain a testimony to the Millar family’s endurance and verve for life as well as a tribute to all those in the fast-fading time when real people were the keepers of our lighthouses.