The Lawyer Islands are located in Malacca Passage, part of the Canadian Inside Passage between Porcher Island and the Tsimpsean Peninsula and just off the mouth of the Skeena River, about 102 miles (165 km) southeast of Ketchikan and 13 miles (20 km) south of Prince Rupert, British Columbia. According to local legend, naval officers noted that two rocks near the islands were known as Client Rock and Bribery Rock and decided that an appropriate name for them would be Lawyer Islands.
The islands were set aside for lighthouse purposes by the dominion government in 1899, but it wasn’t until July 1901 that the steamer Quadra offloaded construction materials on the largest of the islands. A work crew labored on the island for a few months, and when the Quadra returned in November, the ship’s first engineer installed the lantern.
The lighthouse was put in operation on the northernmost island on November 28, 1901. This lighthouse was operational until sometime between 2006 and 2011 when it was replaced by a cylindrical white tower with a red band near the top and a flashing white light on a rock north of Lawyer Island. A covering of dense trees now hides any evidence of the islands’ earlier lighthouse and dwellings. Read more here and here. Explore more of Lawyer Islands here:
