At the end of Old Mission Peninsula, you’ll find a historic beacon of safety: Mission Point Lighthouse.
This week’s Hometown Tourist takes you to the top with gorgeous views.
But as David and Erin show us, there’s even more adventure in store inside this historic light.
“This lighthouse was a working lighthouse for 63 years. It was built on a dune, that’s why it’s not real tall and it was just for the boats, and the ships that came through the bays, east and west bays, said Ginger Schultz, lighthouse manager
Nestled on the beach and in the woods along Old Mission Peninsula, Mission Point Lighthouse no longer guides ships to safety, but it still sheds light on the maritime history of the area.
“It’s just a small part of history, a time when there was a lot of shipping traffic and it was really needed before the technology caught up,” said Schultz.
Climb just 37 steps and learn a little history about the light that guided ships to safety and the only female keeper to keep the oil burning, but a real prize is waiting at the top.
“So we have the steps going up, there’s a landing before you go the last 7 steps, and its real short like a ladder but when you’re up there, there’s plenty of room for a couple of people and since the lens is no longer up there, there’s windows all around the beach, the beautiful view of the beach, it’s actually a great place to go when we have a storm to see the storm rolling in off the lake. It’s just a great viewing area a lot of people taking pictures and that from up there,” said Schultz.
If the views and beautiful pristine beach weren’t enough to bring you out for a picnic for the afternoon, there’s an opportunity to stay and be lighthouse keeper for a week.
“Our keepers stay for the week, they pay $200 to stay in the house, we have beautiful keeper quarters, it’s full kitchen, everything you need, WiFi, cable TV, and they run the gift shop from 10-5 every day,” explained Schultz.
“We really enjoy lighthouse and we’ve been doing keepers up in Lake Superior at lighthouses and we heard about this one and we’ve been down to this one a number of times so we thought this might be interesting. This will be our first time actually in a lighthouse overnight,” said some keeper volunteers.
So if you’re just visiting for the beach and views, or the full keeper experience, stop in the shop, climb the tower and take a peek back in time.
“I think people that come to visit the lighthouse are just interested in history and just really fun people to be with so it’s kind of fun,” noted Schultz.
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