Wilbord Demers
Wilbord Demers was a carpenter and lighthouse keeper at Caribou Island (1899 – 1906) and assisted at Gargantua Lighthouse (date unknown).
Details
Birth Date: September 17, 1864?Birth certainty: High
Death Date: May 15, 1914?Death certainty: High
Occupation: Lighthouse Keeper
Relationships
Related or Connected To: Fred Pelletier
Related How: was Wilbord's assistant at Caribou Island Lighthouse
Sources and Further Learning
Notes
Buried at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Sault Sainte Marie, Algoma District, Ontario. He died in 1914 in an accident at the Soo locks where he slipped and fell while loading ice on a lake freighter and was crushed.
Sources and Further Learning
From lighthousefriends.com: "In December 1904, there was much anxiety at Sault Ste. Marie for the safety of Demers and Fred Pelletier, his helper, after the tug Reid called at the island to retrieve the men at the end of the shipping season. The tug was unable to land due to heavy seas, but no one responded to persistent blasts of its whistle. A payment of $5,000 to the Reid Wrecking Company and $1,084 to the Sault Ste. Marie Tug Company that appeared in the Report of the Auditor General for 1904 – 1905 was attributed to the rescue of the lighthouse keepers at Caribou Island, and the men must have been saved as Keeper Demers served at Caribou Island until 1906."