Above 63

My Stay at White Shoal Lighthouse Has Sparked A Lot of Conversation with Friends and Strangers

This all started when I saw this post come across my Instagram feed. It seemed like a fun adventure for the summer. I’m sure many others who saw this post thought it would be “cool,” but I actually decided to apply. Like many things I attempt, I was not exactly sure about what I was getting into, but the preservation and restoration of the facility seemed enough of a reason to volunteer. My application was accepted and I was assigned to work in late August and early September. I was off to White Shoal Lighthouse in the middle of Lake Michigan, 20 miles west of the Mackinac Bridge.

This post is about my stay on the lighthouse and the spectacular sights. I’ll write more about the lighthouse itself in The Lighthouse Adventure Part 2 (next post).

Arrival

The 45 minute boat ride over was in high winds with sizable waves. I was glad to have solid rain gear on that sunny day. I got to “go under” the Mackinac Bridge for the first time that day. After arriving at the station and climbing the 20 foot ladder up to the main deck I had an odd sensation of movement. I felt like I was on a ship–but it was different. There was the illusion of motion as the waves rolled by, but I was on the main deck of the lighthouse and the lighthouse doesn’t move–even though it felt like it was. After a while that feeling went away.

The Views

It was a week of spectacular views. In an Iceland post I wrote about beauty fatigue. It happened here at the lighthouse as well. Outside of my volunteer duties, I spent a lot of time in the lantern room (at the top) and on the main deck reading or just looking out at Lake Michigan.

As a photographer, I know that the lake is beautiful, but it is essentially a line at the horizon and needs some subjects in the foreground. I had some cooperating spiders one morning at sunrise. There were also elements of the structure that reflect early 20th Century architecture. You also get a sense of space when the Mackinac Bridge just looks like a line drawing on the horizon.

After sunset offered a whole different set of views when the stars and the moon came out and the light turned on. The Milky Way was worth the trip.

Vertical Living

This is a big structure of about 5000 square feet mostly up and down. My favorite space to hang out was the lantern room on deck 10. This offered incredible views of the Straits of Mackinac, both peninsulas and the big lake islands. I tried to get up there for a while in the morning and the afternoon– so worth it. But that meant climbing all those flights. The nearest bathroom from there was on deck 4 and every trip counts. My step counter counts vertical steps and I was averaging about 30 floors of vertical ascent per day.

Ships

I saw a lot of ships moving between the straits and down shore Lake Michigan. With the help of the “Maritime Traffic” app, I was able to identify ships as they passed and their destinations. I was messaging back and forth with a friend near Port Washington about what ships were heading their way and vice versa.

A Simple Walk Around

Although photos are good, but it is hard to get a sense of space and where the lighthouse is relative to land. You can see the shore, but it is miles away.

Sunrise, Sunset

I’m hard pressed to think of a time or place in my life where I have been able to see the sunrise and sunset from the same place on the same day.

What Stays With Me

What stays with me most is not just the views, but the feeling of being suspended between sky and water, day after day. The lighthouse was both a place of work and a place of solitude—a reminder of how small we are against the horizon, and yet how connected we remain through light, ships, and even simple conversations with friends across the lake. I was also reminded of the many who have worked here or been guided by its light on the horizon.