Lighthouse News

Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association Taking Applications

In a wonderful opportunity to experience life as a lighthouse keeper, and do your share towards preservation, the Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association (GLLKA) is once again offering an opportunity to volunteer at one of their two lighthouses. Both lights are in northern lower Michigan, and you will not find a better opportunity anywhere to live in a lighthouse. Although this is a working vacation, the work isn’t hard. And with a view like that seen in the photo at the left, it wouldn’t be hard to convince me to sign up. Information below from Terry Pepper, Executive Director of GLLKA.

Run An Inn and the Lighthouse Too

A dream job has become available for a couple who long to be lighthouse keepers, at East Brother Island Lighthouse in San Pablo Bay, California. This one acre island in the bay, about a 10-15 minute boat ride to their nearest neighbor, the harbormaster at Point San Pablo Yacht Harbor, is a bed and breakfast. The successful applicants will watch over the flashing light and foghorns, and will run the inn housed in the 1874 lighthouse, which is still an active aid to navigation. And it’s a well paying position too, with the salary earned set at between $70,000 and $100,000, plus room and board. A health plan is also included.

Can You Identify This Man?

If you can identify this Maine lighthouse keeper, call Tim Harrison at 207-259-2121 or email him at editor@LighthouseDigest.com.

It’s been two years since Tim Harrison, editor of Lighthouse Digest, came across a photograph of a distinguished looking lighthouse keeper and but the man’s identity still remains a mystery. Harrison, who is nearing completion of a book on the lighthouses of Maine’s Washington County, said he’d like to include the photograph in the book, but he would like to be able to include the man’s name and some information about him and his family. Harrison would also like to know what lighthouse or lighthouses this mystery keeper served at. “When I first discovered the photograph, I thought it should be fairly easy to find someone who might know or recall who he is from old family records or photo albums, but so far I’ve been unsuccessful,” said Harrison.

Reuters India has a story on Sally Snowman, the civilian lighthouse keeper at Little Brewster Island. Thanks to Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass), the light at Boston Harbor will always be tended to by a keeper. Snowman was hired in 2003 when the Coast Guard decided a civilian could do the job.

Tawas Point Lighthouse Needs Keepers

Well, technically it’s not a job. It would be considered a working vacation, I guess. But for only $275 a week, you can stay in the renovated upstairs of the former lightkeeper’s house at Tawas Point, Michigan. The Tawas Point State Park is looking for people willing and able to work in the lighthouse, for one or two weeks at a time. Tawas Point is located in the Northeastern portion of the state, on Tawas Bay, which is off Lake Huron. This lighthouse beam used to be visible to your editor (that’s me) on a clear night from the opposite side of Saginaw Bay.

Recent articles crossing the desk of Lighthouse News provided some good reading (and watching). Enjoy.

I Love My Lighthouse

An excerpt from a story at the Fleetwood News:

“I never thought it was possible to love a lighthouse. Then, I became a tour guide at Cape Leeuwin, right where the Indian and Southern Oceans meet, where it is beautiful, wild and remote. Surrounded by granite rocks, ocean swells and unique Australian scrub the Cape is considered by mariners to be one of the most dangerous in the world. It’s well known for its numerous shipwrecks and has a rich seafaring history of English, Dutch and French exploration.
3 days into my new job and I’m still in training to be a Guide. The wind has reached gale force today and I stagger past the old Lighthouse Keepers cottages, muttering to myself and hanging on to what’s left of my tour notes - flapping bits of ripped paper.

Who wouldn’t want to spend one or two months on the shores of beautiful Lake Superior in the midst of the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore? If you can’t resist a volunteer opportunity of a lifetime, read on…

Live In Lightkeepers House

Volunteer apartments in the lightkeepers house at Au Sable Light will be provided for a volunteer Au Sable Lightstation Museum Attendant and a volunteer Au Sable Lighthouse Interpretive Assistant. Both positions run from July 1 through September 1 and you would be expected to either work in the lighthouse museum in the keeper’s quarters or lead tours to the lighthouse.

So many people dream of being lighthouse keepers, harking back to the romance of being on a windswept island, tending the lights and performing heroic acts in between writing poetry. Well, those days are gone (actually, they never existed). But are they? If you want to serve as a lightkeeper, there still are opportunities for you. Unfortunately, these are paid even less than the lightkeepers of yore, and though the work duties may have changed, you still won’t be able to sit around listening to the waves crash on the shore while the gulls wheel overhead. So here are a couple of lightkeeper positions you may be interested in exploring for next year.

Who wouldn’t want to live on an island as a volunteer caretaker (and paid weather observer) for a gorgeous lighthouse on Australia’s southernmost lighthouse? The only requirements are passing a psychological exam, being first aid certified, complete weather observation training and enjoy mowing lawns. For a nearby Hobart couple, it was exactly what they wanted, a chance to escape the rat race for a few months.

Under a proposal put forth by the Vachon (Washington) Park District Commissioner Bill Ameling and the President of the Keepers of Point Robinson Lighthouse, Capt. Joe Wubbold, the resident caretaker will be moved from his rent free home in the former lightkeeper’s residence to a new place (yet to be built) in the park’s upper parking area. Reason? To earn more money in rental fees, which in theory would pay for the new caretaker residence.