Lighthouse keepers had their fair share of shipwreck rescues and riding out storms. But many of them had good tales to tell, too. Here’s a snapshot look at a few of them.
In September 1912, American author/adventurer Raymond Smiley Spears rowed his small sail-powered open boat along the north shore of Lake Superior from Fort William (now part of the city of Thunder Bay) to Michipicoten. Along the way he stopped to visit some of the lighthouses, including Shaganash Lighthouse (aka No. 10 Lighthouse) built in 1910 on northwest Lake Superior at end of Island #10. In his book, A Trip of the Great Lakes, he describes his first sighting of the lighthouse while a few miles away:
“Somehow, I do not remember having seen anything that seemed so lonesome as that light there on Great Shaganash Island. The place was so utterly away from everything, separated by islands and channels and miles of woods.”
However, after he landed on the island and visited with the 68-year-old British-born keeper William Iles Fairall, who fixed the boom for his sail, Spears praised the island, later writing, “It was quite the most natural place I had seen, with water and islands and wild mainlands untampered by rude or commercial hands of mankind.”
Over at Michipicoten Island East End Lighthouse on Michipicoten Island in northeast Lake Superior, romance was in the air when in September 1972, the head lighthouse keeper Joseph Thibeault, an Ojibway, married Ann Whitehorse in a wedding ceremony that caught the attention of international media. The couple had met briefly in Toronto where Ann was living some years ago. Here’s what Missouri’s Sedalia Democrat published on September 27, 1972, about the couple:
“They started writing each other, and Ann’s letters eased the loneliness in Joe’s life as a lighthouse keeper on Michipicoten Island. They became engaged by mail two years ago. The groom, a former fisherman who has been light-keeping for 10 years, was dressed in Indian regalia as he rode up to the beach on horseback for the outdoors wedding ceremony. The bride, from New Waterford, Nova Scotia, wore a long brightly-hued dress which Joe said signified nature’s colors and life.”
Could the Norse explorers have reached Lake Superior by a river link from James Bay or Hudson’s Bay in Canada’s far north? In an 1896 article “Trouting on the North Shore” in Outing magazine, writer W. O. Henderson mentions meeting the first keeper Louis Miron at Gargantua Lighthouse, which was built and lit in 1889 on a small island in northeast Lake Superior at the entrance to Gargantua Harbour.
Henderson wrote, “Three times Miron had been to Hudson’s Bay, a full seven hundred miles going by canoe up the Michicpicoten and down the Moose Rivers. On the quickest trip he reached the bay on the eleventh day after leaving Superior, making 35 portages, and shooting 175 rapids on the way. Their quickest return trip was made in seventeen days.”
Known as the Michipicoten Canoe Route, it was an important link from Lake Superior to James Bay and Hudson’s Bay via Michipicoten, Missinaibi, and Moose Rivers. Though the first recorded journey was in the 1770s when the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) began establishing fur-trade posts along the rivers, the route may well have been used for eons by Indigenous people. Could the Norse explorers have accompanied them in the past as a route inland to Lake Superior?
So, what’s the story about a mermaid in Lake Superior? Well, the first assistant lighthouse keeper John Whelan at Michigan’s Sand Hills Light on Five Mile Point, Eagle River, for 15 years (1919 to 1930), became known as someone that had seen mermaids. Perhaps it was because he said, “If you live around lighthouse stations long enough, you begin to see mermaids on the rocks and hear them sing.” In a Detroit News article (May 10, 1932) “Drama of the Lonely Man,” reporter Stella M. Champany wrote that another keeper told her, “Whelan sees mermaids on the rocks and hears them singing.” Furthering his legendary connection with mermaids, when Whelan built a beautiful model ship, now on display at Eagle River Museum, he also carved a mermaid figure to sit on the ship’s deck looking out.
Myth or something else? Some readers may have read about the well-documented sighting on May 3, 1772, by fur trader Venant St. Germain of a “merman” sea creature in the waters around Pie Island, which is located in eastern Lake Superior about 6.2 miles (10 km) south of Thunder Bay. St. Germain was so troubled by the sighting that 30 years after seeing the merman, he signed a court affidavit in Montreal, Quebec, dated November 13, 1812, to legally record the incident. And in his deposition, he recorded that another voyageur had seen a similar animal when paddling Pie [Pate] Island.
Over at Porphyry Island Lighthouse on Edward Island in western Lake Superior, there’s a heart-warming story told about a cat and lighthouse keeper Dave Sokalsky in the 1970s. During his last year at the lighthouse, Dave had taken a kitten with him for company and they had a great relationship. After locking down the lighthouse in November, Dave packed up all his things. But when the Canadian Coast Guard helicopter came to pick him up, his beloved companion was nowhere to be found and he had to lift off, leaving his cat behind, alone on the island.
Heartbroken, Dave paid the cost for a helicopter ride back to Porphyry to find his lost cat. When he arrived, his cat was waiting at the door of the lighthouse. Dave bundled her up in his coat for the ride back to the city, where the cat enjoyed a long life.