Become a Volunteer Lighthouse Keeper in Michigan

edited by Nan Frient

Every year, thousands of visitors make their way to the tip of the scenic Old Mission Peninsula to see the 1870 lighthouse that stands above the rocky shoals of Grand Traverse Bay. Until now, though, few people have ever been allowed inside.

Although the lighthouse is part of a public park, it's been used as a private residence, closed to the public except on rare occasions. That's about to change this summer, when the simple clapboard building will be open to visitors on a regular basis for the first time in its 138-year history.

"We won't have the entire lighthouse ready just yet," said Fred Stoye, head of the Peninsula Township park board, which has owned the lighthouse since 1948. "But there will be several rooms furnished with historical displays, and people will be able to climb up into the tower for viewing the bay."

The township has also decided to emulate the successful "volunteer lighthouse keeper program" established several years ago at the Grand Traverse Lighthouse just across the bay in Northport. For $800 a month, volunteers will be able to live and work in the lighthouse, doing light maintenance work, answering visitors' questions and operating a soon-to-be-opened gift shop.

Over 18 miles long and in places barely a mile wide, the Old Mission Peninsula is a popular Michigan destination, thanks to its scenery, its farming settlements and its wine industry. And it's a rare visitor who doesn't drive all the way to Old Mission Point, if only to stand beside the lighthouse and look out over Lake Michigan and the distant Antrim and Leelanau coastlines.

The lighthouse is not the only attraction at Lighthouse Park. Nearby is a furnished log cabin from one of the peninsula's first settler families, and the 142-acre park includes miles of beaches and shoals as well as an extensive network of hiking, cycling and skiing trails through the forested interior.