Hopefully, the negative response from Fisheries and Oceans Canada to the Dawson Citizens Improvement Association’s application to lease and operate the Mississagi Lighthouse Park is not the end of this story.
The Mississagi Lighthouse sits on Manitoulin’s far Western tip, a beacon to mariners traversing the Mississagi Straits between Manitoulin Island and its unattached municipality, Cockburn Island.
People love to get to the very tip of things like this Island and experience the wind and waves that seem to be always in motion and from which, on clear days, the faraway Michigan shoreline can be seen. The Mississagi Lighthouse itself is photo and visitor-worthy and is also associated with the possible location of the wreck of La Salle’s ship Griffon in 1679. (She was the first sailing ship built on the Great Lakes and disappeared during her maiden trip’s return to trip to Lake Erie after a fur trading expedition in upper Lake Michigan.)
There is a mystique there, borne of old things purposefully built, like the 1873 lighthouse where visitors can imagine the lightkeeper and his family living in the building in this remote spot, charged with keeping the light shining through the night and fog as a warning and beacon to sail and steam-powered vessels.
Then there’s the Griffon saga: did this new ship end her days near where we can look out over Lake Huron’s vastness, with all hands lost, close to 350 years ago? Were there survivors who may have made their way to this lonely outcrop?
And, of course, there’s this thing about getting to the very Western tip of Manitoulin’s triangular shape and taking in the power of Lake Huron as it tries and tries to eat away at the Island’s rocky shoreline.
All of these were the reasons why a predecessor of the Dawson Citizens Improvement Association, the Meldrum Bay Historical Society, took the original lease on the property well over 50 years ago and, with the support of federal and provincial governments, created a modest campground with services, washrooms and a shower house to encourage visitors to visit the Island’s tip.
The pioneering organization did the work, ran the place seasonally for over a decade and made it a destination.
Then it was the Manitoulin Tourism Association’s (the old MTA) turn to hold the lease, which it did from 1983 until recently working with a series of managers to operate the park, serve modest meals in the old “fog plant” (operating a steam-powered foghorn was part of the lightkeeper’s duties on extremely foggy days and, especially, nights as further warnings to ships) and to maintain the old lighthouse as a museum and a testimony to this vitally important aspect of the community’s history.
When the MTA took over the lease to manage the property, this was some time before Misery Bay Provincial Nature Park (off Highway 540, east of Silver Water) was open to the public and so, at that time, there was no natural attraction to tourists visiting Manitoulin Island to make the more than 70 KM trip and spend nearly an hour on Highway 540 in the process, between Gore Bay and Meldrum Bay, one way.
That made, and still makes, the Mississagi Lighthouse a vital tourist attraction. Misery Bay Provincial Park has become an important destination on its own, no question about that, but its major tourist appeal is to people who are field naturalists or have an interest in the myriad of natural features available there.
The Mississagi Lighthouse and its associated park have, on the other hand, more universal appeal with the aforementioned mystique associated with lighthouses and legends and the fact of getting to the very tip of somewhere where, as a bonus, there’s the grandeur and power of Lake Huron on full display.
The Dawson Citizens Improvement Association has a proven track record of “getting things done!” In the past decade, this volunteer organization has built a first-rate two-storey visitors centre for boaters adjacent to Meldrum Bay’s marina and, to make their marina more attractive to transient boaters on the North Channel, has sought funding for and has overseen the construction of a massive break wall. Its volunteers have accomplished many other smaller projects as well.
This is an organization that is perfectly suited to taking on the rehabilitation and operation of the Mississagi Lighthouse complex, once again welcoming tourist visitors to this place that is, in every respect, one of Manitoulin Island’s gems.
The federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans must quickly revisit the application for a lease on the Mississagi Lighthouse property by the local organization. It has been, in the pre-pandemic past, vital to Western Manitoulin’s tourism and the Island tourist industry as a whole. It will be again.
