Have you ever gazed up at the distant spire of a Great Lakes lighthouse and thought to yourself, “Which brave and dutiful soul is up there right now, keeping the light?”
Well, that soul could be you.
Each year, Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) recruits teams of volunteer lighthouse keepers to staff the Tawas Point Lighthouse in two-week shifts. To learn more about the program, Stateside spoke with DNR historian Don La Barre, as well as volunteer lighthouse keepers Karen and Kelvin Kilbourn.
According to La Barre, Michigan has more than 120 lighthouses still standing—many of them built in the mid-1800s during the early years of Michigan statehood. Some, like Tawas Point, are owned by the state, but others are kept as private homes or bed and breakfasts. Still, others have been entirely abandoned.
Tawas Point, just north of Saginaw Bay, has kept a lamp lit on its shores since 1853. That task has been more difficult than you might expect. Sand accumulation pushed the shoreline out past the original 1853 lighthouse. So in 1876, the current lighthouse was built at what was then the water’s edge. Today, the lighthouse is more than a mile from the shoreline, and a modern light pole marks the divide between land and water.
Each summer, Tawas Point Lighthouse is staffed by the DNR’s corps of volunteer lighthouse keepers. Teams of four spend two weeks there. In the mornings, they tidy the property and raise the flag. In the afternoons, they give historical tours of the lighthouse to those interested in climbing the structure’s 85 steps.
“A lot of these duties that we're describing are duties that the original lighthouse keepers would have done,” Karen Kilbourn told Stateside. “And if they did not do it, and the inspector happened to show up unexpectedly, well you could be in trouble.”
The Kelbourns have done two tours of service at Tawas Point. And they said each day they spent there brought a slightly different view of the surrounding landscape. On some days, they could point out the sites of shipwrecks in the water. On others, they’d watch flocks of piping plovers along the beach.
“On a clear day,” said Kelvin Kelbourn, “you can actually see the windmills on the thumb of Michigan, all the way across Saginaw Bay.”
