Canadian Lighthouses of the Great Lakes
In June 2024, I was invited to participate in a seaplane ride to photograph several Canadian Lighthouses in Lake Superior. These lighthouses are very far out in the water and cannot be seen from land.
I left on Monday morning and crossed into Canada in Buffalo, NY, to photograph the Horseshoe Reef Lighthouse, which is in danger of collapsing. From there, I traveled west and met up with my friend Greg to photograph several lighthouses along the Canadian Lake Huron coast. On Tuesday, we made our way north by taking the historic Chi-Cheemaun ferry from Tobermory to Manitoulin Island and shooting several more land lighthouses heading north to Sault Ste Marie, Ontario.
On Wednesday morning, we met up with James Hill, who organized the plane ride, and we drove the final couple of hours to Wawa, Ontario. During the morning, heavy fog and light rain rolled in, threatening our plane ride. Our pilot recommended waiting a few hours to see if it broke up. Luckily for us, it did start to break up around late morning, so we opted to delay departure to the early afternoon.
Just before our departure, the pilot cleaned all the windows so we could get the clearest shots of the lighthouse. Since the seas were rough, we couldn’t land the seaplane on the water. Once underway, we grabbed a few shots of the Michipicoten Harbour Lighthouse station. The original tower is gone, but the original buildings and a modern skeleton tower remain.
We flew 65 miles southwest to Caribou Island Lighthouse, the primary lighthouse on our hit list. This lighthouse is the most remote lighthouse on Lake Superior, even more remote than the Stannard Rock Lighthouse in Michigan, which I visited a few years ago. Once we arrived, our pilot performed numerous passes around the island. Some were at 200 feet of elevation, and some were as low as 15 feet above the water, which gave us incredible photo opportunities.
Once we finished at Caribou Island, we flew 25 miles north to photograph the Davieaux Island Light and the Michipicoten Island Lighthouse. We flew several passes at each light to get multiple heights and angles. After we got our shots, we flew 45 miles back to Wawa. It was an incredible two hours of photography, and I’d like to thank James Hill and Greg Fitzgerald for allowing me to go along.
