HOLLAND HARBOR LIGHT
$30.00
Originally $35, Now On Sale for $30!
The first lighthouse at the mouth of Holland Harbor was a wooden structure built in 1872. The keeper’s house, which was built in 1907, was modified to contain the light in a tower erected in 1936. The light is covered with steel plates, painted bright red, and the lighthouse is known affectionately as ”Big Red”.
With 116 lighthouses, Michigan has more than any other state. Many have automated lights, and some, sadly, have been abandoned to the elements.
Poster 30 x 22 inches.
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LITTLE SABLE POINT LIGHT, MICHIGAN
The Little Sable Point Light is located along a remote section of sandy dunes on the west coast of Michigan’s lower peninsula. Completed in 1874, the lighthouse was fitted with an automatic electric light in 1954, and the keeper’s house was demolished, leaving only the brick tower standing. The light can be reached by a short hike from a parking area in the Silver Lake State Park. When I visited the park in early fall, the late afternoon sun bathed the brick tower and dunes with a golden light.
Poster 30 x 22 inches.
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PEMAQUID POINT LIGHTHOUSE, MAINE
This well-known lighthouse, situated on a rugged outcrop of unique rock formations about 16 miles south of Damariscotta on Maine’s central coast, was commissioned in 1827 by President John Quincy Adams. It was rebuilt in 1857. Although the tower is only 38 feet tall, its commanding position atop a rock ledge allows the light to be seen on a clear day for 14 miles. The lightkeeper’s house is now a Fisherman’s museum, containing artifacts of Maine lighthouses and the fishing and lobster industry.
I stayed overnight at the Pemaquid Point Hotel, and hiked down to the rocks below the lighthouse before dawn. As thick clouds rolled in from the west, I was treated to a magnificent sunrise. The dawn light flushed the rocks, then the lighthouse, with pink, then orange as the sun rose. The spectacle was so spellbinding I almost forgot to set up my camera and take the photograph!
Poster 30 x 22 inches.
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POINT AUX BARQUES
The lighthouse at Point Aux Barques (“point of the little boats”) was constructed in 1857 to mark the transition from Lake Huron into Saginaw Bay, and to warn lake travelers of the shallow waters near the coast. Nearby, out in Lake Huron, is an underwater park, the Thumb Area Bottomland Preserve, that was set up by the state in 1985 to protect the nine known shipwrecks that lie offshore. Relics gathered from the wrecks are stored in the Lighthouse Museum. This isolated area, the “thumb” of the mitten-shaped lower peninsula of Michigan, is a world away from the large urban areas of Detroit, Flint, or Saginaw. Many visitors, who come to enjoy the small towns, farm markets, picturesque lighthouses and historical areas, hope that the Thumb retains its rural charm.
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WEST QUODDY HEAD LIGHTHOUSE
Located on the easternmost point of land in the continental United States, this stately red-and-white striped lighthouse was built in 1858 after an earlier light, commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson in 1806, was completed in 1808. The white flashing light is visible for 18 miles. Nearby, across the Canadian border on Campobello Island in New Brunswick, is the summer home of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and the East Quoddy Head Light. West Quoddy Head Light is surrounded by some of the most rugged coastal scenery in the eastern United States. From the light, the steep cliffs of Canada’s Grand Manan Island, a center for commercial fishing and birdwatching, can be seen to the southeast. To the north stretches the bay of Fundy, where tides can rise and fall as much as thirty feet.
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