Lighthouse News

Thousands of Dollars In Damage

Western Michigan’s iconic lighthouse, Holland Harbor, also known familiarly as “Big Red,” was vandalized over October 7 and 8. Using a construction ladder to climb in and break out a window, the perpetrators discovered red and white paint and dumped it starting in the basement boiler room, tracking it up the stairs and splattering it everywhere, all the way to the lantern room.

Besides the paint damage, a light at the top was broken, and a $20,000 display on loan to the Holland Harbor Lighthouse Commission from the Holland Museum was demolished. The vandals also tore off flag holders, and left scratch marks. Damage is estimated at thousands of dollars, without even figuring in the man hours needed to take care of the mess.

Four  or Five To Be De-Staffed Immediately

From both coasts, comes the news that the Canadian Coast Guard is de-staffing their automated lighthouses with a vengeance. Five are on tap to lose their keepers in the very near future, in a so-called cost saving effort. The others will (as of this writing) be de-staffed through attrition, that is, retirements, different assignments, etc. Canada is the only Western country that still has Coast Guard personnel at some (but not all) automated lighthouses, in a lighthouse keeper capacity.

Original Style of Beacon Will Be Recreated

Emmet County, Michigan, is fast becoming number one in lighthouse activism. No sooner have they, along with the Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association, finished with the purchase, lantern room rebuild and relighting of McGulpin Point Lighthouse, than they have partnered once again with GLLKA to undertake the replacement of the Petoskey Pier Lighthouse. Why replace, when there’s already a perfectly functional light already there? Well, it’s not the original, which was swept off the pier during a Christmas Eve storm in 1924, probably similar to the one pictured at left. And Emmet County residents Carolyn and Gordon Bourland would like to see the original, historically accurate light instead.

Group Claims Adding Rocks Will Harm Environment

After months of planning, and getting approval and estimated for the addition of rocks at Montauk Point Lighthouse, including having to transfer ownership to the town of East Hampton to get the funding, a group of surfers has come forward to protest the addition of the rocks to the existing revetment at the point. The Eastern Long Island Surfriders claimed at a July 7 meeting that the better thing to do is move the lighthouse away from the cliff edge, citing such lighthouses as Sankaty, Cape Hatteras and others as examples.

No Money To Paint Iconic Lighthouse (Updated)

One of Nova Scotia’s most visited lighthouses will be left without a paint job, even though it’s in desperate need of one. The land based lighthouse, easily accessible to hundreds of thousands of visitors each year, was denied the $25,000 from the Department of Fisheries funds to scrape and repaint its tower. The DFO is in agreement that the lighthouse needs some cosmetic work, but the stimulus money isn’t going to be used on it, preferring to reserve funding those lighthouse that are structurally unsound, which Peggys Cove is not.

“Some people see things that are, and ask ‘Why.’ My brother Bobbie saw things that were not there, and asked, ‘Why not?’” - Eulogy by Ted Kennedy for his brother.

In a time when the Coast Guards in the U.S. and Canada are trying to shed their unmanned lighthouses to save money, there is at least one man who saw something that was not there, but should be. The Honorable Ray Stortini, a retired Justice of the Superior Court of Justice in Algoma, Canada, has sought for several years to build a lighthouse. And he has finally succeeded. A new lighthouse, replacing the small navigational light sitting atop a warehouse, will be dedicated and lit on May 30, 2009.

City Manager Wants to Renegotiate Terms With NPS

Michigan is my home state. While others revile Detroit and the state, I still am proud to refer to myself as a Michigander. On the one hand, the state supports and cherishes their lighthouses. Emmett County even went so far as to buy a private lighthouse and return it to its original state and relight it. But on the other hand, there are certain clueless city managers that refuse and obstruct the transfer of one of the most historic lighthouses in the state to their care. That manager is Bruce Brown, City manager of Port Huron, Michigan, pictured at left. An article in the Port Huron Times Herald appeared today that completely shocked me. If my calling Brown clueless sounds harsh, it’s because I’m privy to certain knowledge about what has been going on behind the scenes. And there is absolutely NO excuse for Brown wanting to send back the deed for “further negotiation.” Let me explain…

Ready For Relighting May 30

McGulpin Point Lighthouse, dimmed and lost for 106 years, is one of the better lighthouse recovery stories of the year. Built in 1869, after a ten year wait, it shone only for a few years. The Old Mackinac Point Light and Fog Signal Station came along in 1892, and it was determined that McGulpin Point Lighthouse was no longer needed. It stayed lit for a few more years, until November 12, 1906, when the Keeper, James Davenport, extinguished the light for the last time. The lantern was removed and the house was put up for auction, becoming the private home of several families until 2008, when it was put on the market by its latest owners, the Pepplers.

By Dawn Alexander with Linda Hudson

When my cell phone rang in July of 2008 while I was working in my home office, I was suddenly reconnected with an island. The island was called Patos and this phone call would change my life in a most profound way. You see, when I was a small child I lived on Patos Island with my dad, who was a Coast Guard lighthouse keeper, my mother and my new baby brother. The call came from a friend who told me that he had found out about a new non-profit group, Keepers of the Patos Light, which had recently formed with the goal of preserving both the lighthouse and Patos Island. Memories came flooding back of idyllic childhood years spent on Patos Island, which is located in the far north of the San Juan Islands, off the northwest coast of Washington State.

Lighthouse Preservation Funded in 2009 Budget

What a week of controversy leading up to the passage of the 2009 Spending Bill, aka the 2009 Budget. Particularly when it came to Maine Lighthouses. Some Republicans, led by John McCain, made a big fuss about the so-called pork programs in the Spending Bill, that was up for a vote in both Houses last week. While President Obama has promised to eliminate “pork” from future spending bills, this one was crafted under the auspices of the old administration. It was ultimately passed, but not after McCain’s staff laid into one of them especially, the $380,000 promised to the American Lighthouse Foundation for renovations to three Maine lighthouses. these lighthouses are still owned by the Federal Government and haven’t been transferred. But the ALF has a lease for maintaining them.