My Week with a Superior Sentinel

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The list of amenities was very clear:

  • Drinkable water is not available, so bring your own water and beverages.
  • Electricity is not available for personal use.
  • Phone service (landline or cellular) is not available.
  • There are not any refrigerators, nearest ice available is approximately 12 miles away.
  • There are no garbage cans or dumpsters available. When your stay is complete, take all trash with you.
  • There is no heat in any of the buildings.
  • There are flush toilets and hand sanitizer in the restrooms.

Sounded perfect. So last summer, I logged onto Craigslist, rented a camper, and my girlfriend, Emily Schulte, Molly the beagle and I made the trek to Crisp Point Lighthouse, equally far – 36 miles – from the nearest towns of Paradise or Newberry, Michigan.

For seven days, we would be the official “unofficial” keepers of the lighthouse, thanks to my annual membership in the Crisp Point Light Historical Society and acceptance of my request for a week as a volunteer.

The adventure was sparked in the summer of 2009, my first full year in Grand Rapids, Michigan, after leaving my job as a chief meteorologist for WDIO TV in Duluth. Since moving, I’ve truly missed Lake Superior. Lake Michigan is appealing in many ways, but I have yet to develop the relationship with it that I have with the Big Lake. I try to return at least once every year.

In 2009, Emily, Molly and I toured some of the last shoreline we had yet to see – the eastern Upper Peninsula. As always, I had exhaustively researched attractions before hopping in the car, and Crisp Point Lighthouse was on my “must see” list. I’m passionate about Great Lakes lights, and this one had particular appeal. It’s among the most remote and relatively untouched by visitations. On arrival, I learned why few make the journey: 18 miles of washboard logging trail turned snowmobile trail that doubles as a Luce County road is tough on your car and your back.

The lighthouse exceeded our expectations. The 58-foot beacon sits on a stunning stretch of sandy beach, with a narrow strip offering the best picking rocks this side of Two Harbors, Minnesota.

The late-August water was warm, black flies notably absent and the beach pristine and quiet. We basked on the sand a full day, enjoying the lake. Toes in the calm crystal water, it was hard to believe mariners once feared and still respect this stretch of shore called the “Shipwreck Coast.”

Aside from a few other tourists, we saw only the guest lightkeepers, Chuck and Cindy Nearhood from Toledo, Ohio. The couple told us about the volunteer program, which assigns only one individual or family at a time. One week at the light, beach to yourself, no electricity, no Internet, no cell service. Just get a handle on your Lake Superior maritime history, open the tower and the visitor center daily 10 to 5, keep the restrooms stocked (the water pumps for the toilets are solar-powered) and sweep the sand that finds its way into every nook and cranny.

When we first visited, the society to protect the light was fairly new and getting involved was easy. We joined the society on the spot, went to its modest website when we got home and applied to “keep.” Application accepted.

On site, keepers set up camp yards from the lighthouse. At night there was nothing but the stars and lonely tower to keep us company. In terms of solitude, a night at Crisp Point is like having a lake in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness all to yourself.

When our first morning of duty rolled in, we opened the tower and the small visitor center, swept sand off the tower stairs (our most physical task) and grabbed a book. By 11 a.m., not a soul had stopped. Noon brought lunch and our first visitors simultaneously. Apparently, it was just a slow morning. From that point on, visitors streamed in at a better-than-irregular, but slower-than-steady pace. It seemed this mighty light had been discovered since our 2009 visit.

Between duties and after hours left us plenty of time to enjoy the Lake. The August nights were quite mild. We had no strong storms, a little rain. Temperatures were perfect for campfires and sleeping with the camper windows cracked.

The splendid remoteness offered great recreation. There was Lake swimming with the dog, taking in sunsets, and breathing in the clean fresh air coming off the water.

From mid-morning to late afternoon, it can get busy, but because of the light’s remoteness and long, tough road, we rarely saw people after 4 p.m. Every sunset and sunrise, we had to ourselves. The only drawback for a couple of news and political junkies was no newspaper, but after 48 hours, we kind of forgot about the rest of the world. Except, of course, for the weather. One radio station provided a clear signal and we tuned in daily for weather updates from fellow TV meteorologist Karl Bohnak.

Another task was to bone up on history to field visitor questions. Since I love lighthouses, this was hardly a chore.

Congress agreed to fund a lighthouse at Crisp Point in 1896, a necessary navigational aid between Grand Marais, Michigan and Whitefish Point. The tower was first lit in 1904. The lighthouse and its keeper families watched over Lake Superior until 1942, when generator technology allowed for an automated electric light.

The U.S. Coast Guard demolished all of the buildings, except the tower and service room, in 1965. The automated light was turned off in 1992, by which time new technology made this lighthouse extraneous, according to the Guard.

The lighthouse was rediscovered by the late Don and Nellie Ross, a retired couple from Ohio who frequently snowmobiled around the Upper Peninsula. They found the light in disrepair and in danger of falling victim to the crashing waves of Lake Superior. In 1991, the Rosses started the Crisp Point Light Historical Society to preserve the light. Despite their efforts, in 1996, storm erosion caused the lighthouse service room to crumble into the lake. Lighthouse Digest put Crisp Point on its Doomsday List for the most endangered lighthouses in the world.

Today, strictly through private donations, the society has rebuilt the service room, constructed a visitor center that is an architectural replica of the fog signal building, and laid a small network of wooden paths leading to the tower. The tower has been repainted, erosion-preventing vegetation planted and, most importantly, boulders placed in front of the light to prevent the advancing appetite of Lake Superior. In 2000, Lake Superior Magazine gave the society its annual Achievement Award for its efforts.

Meeting and greeting people at the lighthouse, while it broke into our Robinson Crusoe, just-us ideal, still became one of the parts of light keeping I enjoyed.

What interested me most was not where they came from – all over the United States and Canada – but how they arrived. About a third came on horseback or ATV. I knew the U.P. as snowmobile heaven (great snow, groomed trails, endless scenery), but I didn’t realize its popularity with four-wheelers, nor did I know so many trails connect near Crisp Point. In fact, the last seven miles of extra-rough entry road is a designated snowmobile trail in winter.

In our week at the light, two visitors remain strongly in my memory. It was a slow afternoon, and lunch was on the grill when I spotted the canoe, barely visible, several hundred feet from shore. I’m not a canoeing Lake Superior guy, ever since my brother and I almost swamped my wood-canvas Seliga canoe in the cold waters off of Duluth’s Park Point a decade ago, so this caught my attention. The waves were aggressive, but this little canoe didn’t seem to be in distress. The water was warm, so swimming wouldn’t be a danger if there were trouble. The canoe landed by the lighthouse. The paddlers were two young women.

Lindsay Bean and Jess Laxo hailed from Marquette and were on the home stretch of a circumnavigation of Lake Superior that started in their home city almost two months earlier. We, who love the Lake, know it can be unforgiving and downright hostile. Despite these truths, Lindsay and Jess paddled from Marquette, around the Keweenaw, all the way to Superior. Food drops from friends were their main contact with the outside world.

In Superior, they had arranged to visit a doctor. Lindsay had been paddling with a sore shoulder for several days. They loaded their gear on a trailer, enjoyed a few moments of civilization at a coffee shop before the appointment, and then returned to the trailer to discover that nearly everything in it had been stolen. The sleeping gear, cameras, navigation gear, even their Lake Superior Magazine map was gone. Short of an all-out at-sea disaster, nothing could have been worse, or a bigger blow to morale.

The two called home, got a ride back to Marquette and immediately devised an ambitious plan: Contact friends and string together a second set of gear. Within 10 days, the pair was back on the Lake. Sadly, the realities of schedule and income shaved 10 days off their journey, so they skipped the Duluth-to-Pigeon River leg. This spring Lindsay told me their grand adventure covering two-thirds of the Lake was a lot of fun, and after all that time in a canoe, she and Jess are still friends. To them, that’s what is important. We agree.

Our sunny, warm days as light keepers went by too fast. Our week coincides with the Blueberry Festival in Paradise, with which we’ve grown very fond. The blueberry picking is second to none. I’ve picked berries on Minnesota’s Gunflint Trail, but the sandy soil near Tahquamenon Falls sets a new standard for berry picking.

Each night, we had a roaring fire, a glass of fine scotch or wine and conversations about how we’re just knock-offs. The real keepers, at Crisp Point from 1904 to 1942, saw all Lake Superior’s moods, good and bad. They were familiar with 20-foot waves, blinding snows, hurricane-force winds and every other type of weather from painfully cold to just right. We enjoyed the Lake’s friendliest temperament.

Mostly, we relished a stretch of beach that belonged, each night, to us alone. For the lover of Lake Superior, almost nothing could be more blissfully out of the way than Crisp Point Lighthouse or more attractively enjoyable than being a volunteer keeper. I’d recommend it to anyone.

But don’t bother trying to get the second week in August. We already have dibs.

Kyle Underwood, a meteorologist and executive producer of weather at WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids, Michigan, worked from 2001-2008 in Duluth.