The current Pointe aux Barques Lighthouse on Michigan’s Thumb opens for public tower climbs a couple times a year.

But, as volunteer assistant lighthouse keepers, Donna and Dennis Phillips get to go places where the public isn’t allowed.
Normal visitors have to stop short of the part of the lighthouse tower that contains the light. Yet a board member with the Pointe aux Barques Maritime Museum, which oversees the lighthouse, led the Phillipses up 103 steps and through a hatch that opened to the very top of the 89-foot tower, revealing panoramic views of the Lake Huron coastline.

“Nice,” Dennis said. “It’s one of our rewards for being here.”

Looking like a tiny model down below, the couple can see the assistant lighthouse keeper’s quarters where they’re staying with Donna’s sister and her husband.

The group is taking part in the museum’s Assistant Keeper Program. It’s one of the ways people in Michigan can spend the night in lighthouses, sleeping where past keeper staff slept when the lights they maintained above them provided a crucial service, aiming to keep ships safe and on course. It’s a chance to spend the night somewhere unique and to reflect on the people behind that bygone job.

Sleeping in a lighthouse was the No. 1 item on the Bridge Michigan Summer Bucket List, voted on by our readers.

A handful of Michigan’s 120-plus lighthouses offer visitors the opportunity to stay on their grounds, either by renting them out or by working as a volunteer in exchange for the perk.

Crossing it off the list

At Pointe aux Barques, volunteers pay $150 each to stay a week in the former assistant lighthouse keeper’s property. The house, built in 1908, still has old decorative wood details around its windows and doors but has fixed-up wood floors, a new walk-in shower and modern appliances.

During their visit, guests are expected to help out at the museum (installed in the former head lighthouse keepers’ quarters) and to pitch in with tasks like cleaning windows, dusting museum artifacts and doing some landscaping.

“People come from all over,” said Mimi Herrington, president of the Pointe aux Barques Maritime Museum. “We’ve had people from Arizona, Colorado, North Carolina, Texas.”

Donna and Dennis, from Midland, say it was a friend’s tales of staying in a lighthouse in the Upper Peninsula that planted the seed for them.

“When she told me their stories, I thought, ‘Oh, when we’re retired, we’re going to do this,’” Donna said. “We’ve been retired a long time and it took us a long time to finally get on a list.”

The couple applied for the first time last year, got in (the Pointe aux Barques program isn’t too competitive, yet) and visited with Dennis’ brother and wife. They loved learning about the maritime history of the area, meeting museum visitors and watching freighters pass by with their lights on in the night.

“Where can you go and have this lakeshore and this house for a week at a minimal price and minimal work?” Donna asked.

A first

The Pointe aux Barques Lighthouse was first built in 1848 from lake stone. That didn’t hold up very well, so the original structure was demolished not long after in 1857, when the lighthouse that stands today was built with a brick tower.

While taking the assistant keepers on a tour of the museum, Pointe aux Barques Maritime Museum board member Larry Becker gestured toward a window.

“You can see, you can point to people and show them over there, the way the ground is burnt there in a circle, this side of those weeds, those bushes, that’s where the first tower stood,” he told the assistant keepers.

Next, he pointed toward a touchscreen exhibit and began talking about the first lighthouse keeper, Peter Shook, who came with his wife, Catherine, and their kids in 1848.

“Peter drowned the following season. Catherine took over the lighthouse with eight kids. She got the same pay as her husband, but, when they brought material up here, she couldn’t sign for it. Her oldest son had to,” Larry said.

“Because she was a woman,” one of the women finished for him.

“Because she was a woman,” Larry confirmed.

It turns out, Catherine Shook was actually the first official head female lighthouse keeper in all of Michigan.

“I would think that would have been one tough lady,” Donna reflected later. “I wouldn’t have been that tough, I don’t think.” But then, after a brief pause, she reconsidered: “Or maybe (I would).”