Patos Island Lighthouse
Patos Island
First lit: 1893
Automated: 1974
48.789 -122.9715
The Isla de Patos, “Island of Ducks” is 210 acres of trees, rock, and sea caves making it a great favorite of smugglers over the years. In the early 1900s the lighthouse keeper and his family made a once per month trip across twenty-six miles of water to Bellingham, Washington for supplies. His nearest neighbor? The Canadian lighthouse keeper on Saturna Island over five miles in the other direction.
When smallpox struck his family, he flew the lighthouse flag upside down as a distress sign to passing ships. By the time help arrived, three of his thirteen children had died.
