Absentee Landlord

Fish Fluke, oil on canvas, 40"x72", Steven Rhude

He had a love/hate relationship with the radio.

The background noise leading into the six o'clock news always sounded melodramatic and contrived to him. All messengers bringing evil reports. Universal screams or fighter jets, protesters chanting slogans indecipherable; it really didn't matter anymore. The tape could have been recording a high school basketball game in Des Moines, Iowa.

 His black Lab eating supper made more sense to him.

Reporting had become an exercise in satire. He should know, so did his art.

Who could really take it seriously anymore, like when a newscast was about to end there was always one absurd or quasi sad, or conversely lighthearted story for consumption.

So he only caught the tail end of it. What did it matter - dust to dust and all that biblical stuff. It's only bricks and mortar; actually wood and mortar in this case - an isolated place called Fish Fluke Point on the eastern side of Grand Harbour.

So where the hell was that?

The year was 1999. Lighthouse Digest declared it the most endangered lighthouse in North America.

So... where the hell was that?

What did it matter? That a catoptric light could be seen for eleven miles on a sunny day. Well that's where the hell it was.

The keepers dwelling was attached. physically and politically. Trumped up charges and the same time honoured smear tactics took their toll. Keeper Daggett noted the person who filed the complaint was in fact under a charge of felony.

Water is always discoloured by politics.

The guy from New York purchased Ross Island from a Maine lumber company in 1984 - sight unseen. Might as well have been sight who cares.


They raised ten thousand; "I'll match your ten and raise you..."

Didn't happen. All touch and no contact.



Steven Rhude, Wolfville, Nova Scotia



In memory of: Keepers Henry Mclaughlin (1879-1883), Mark Daggett (1883-1900), Sidney Guptill (1900- 1904), Loyd Dakin (1904-1912), Fredrick Martin (1912-1914), Harry Mcdowell (1914-1948), Howard Ingalls (1948-1954), Percy Harvey (1954-1963)






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