Lois Nuttall
Porphyry Island presents a remote but ruggedly beautiful outcrop off the eastern edge of Sibley Peninsula in Ontario.
Before you reach the lighthouse you have to cross the Lake, and before you reach the Lake you have to drive the road – a long road to be sure, but for my youngest son, Hannibal, who at 16 just got his driver’s license, the 921-kilometre (572-mile) trek to Lake Superior from Toronto lets him ply his new skills along the expansive Trans-Canada Highway.
My family has visited Lake Superior for several years. Hannibal and his older brother, Fin, both practically learned to swim in and around Rossport, Ontario. (Neither got hypothermia in the process, all you Big Lake swimming naysayers.)
On this mid-August trip north, we plan to journey even farther, out to two of the more remote Ontario lighthouses – on Battle Island off Rossport and on Porphyry Island, just east off the tip of the Sleeping Giant.
This journey has a purpose. I’m one of the artists-in-residence for the month of August with Canadian Lighthouses of Lake Superior, an organization heading the movement to preserve, protect and promote these lighthouses. My mandate is to file stories for Thunder Bay’s Chronicle Journal and write blog posts; it is, for me, a labour of love.
Besides Hannibal and me, the third member of our traveling party is Puff, our King Shepherd (a German Shepherd-Newfoundland mix). Puff is as hale and hardy as she is sociable, and given her love of swimming, we expect she’ll enjoy this adventure as much as we will.
Most visitors from the lower Great Lakes fly to Thunder Bay, but we’ve almost always driven, partly for practical reasons, but there’s also something about logging those road kilometres. (Driving from Toronto the other direction to Chattanooga, Tennessee, is about the same distance as to Thunder Bay.)
From our home near the comparatively calm shore of Lake Ontario, farmland eventually gives way to pink granite in the Canadian Shield. Striking west along Lake Huron’s North Channel, you begin to get a real big lake feel. Still, Lake Huron/Georgian Bay are lyric, while Lake Superior is epic, and soon enough you begin the marvellous – for there is no other word to describe it – passage along Lake Superior’s northern shore.
We arrive at Rossport, where we climb aboard a skiff to visit the Battle Island Lighthouse, famous for a 1977 storm that blew out the windows, almost 150 feet above the Lake. The name has a connection to the 1885 rebellion led by Louis Riel, a Métis leader from Saskatchewan.
Before setting out, I hoist our gas can, and in the process disturb a nest of wasps on the pier and am rewarded for my clumsiness by several sharp stings. Happily, Hannibal, with his bee-sting allergy, and Puff are spared.
By the time we head out, it’s late afternoon with a freshening breeze. We are careful in crossing, but mistakenly hop across one or two islands before alighting at Battle. The skiff, we discover, is probably two to three feet short of appropriate for these waters, yet we avoid being swamped by waves.
Battle offers a splendid vantage from both land and water. A sheltered anchorage includes a dock on the south side of the island, with a black sand beach blending into the boreal forest.
We make our way up the gentle incline to the once inhabited part of the island and pitch our tent in a great camping site beside the roped-off cliff. The light itself is accessible via a precipitous set of stairs. After the climb, you are rewarded with a panoramic view to the west across the Simpson Channel, one of the main channels into Nipigon Bay.
During our three-day stay, the island becomes a crossroads with visitors from Minnesota, Michigan, Quebec and Germany. Two of the three groups arrive by kayak, a popular way to reach Battle, with the third arriving by powerboat.
Our next lighthouse stop proves busier still. The light at Porphyry Island guides commercial traffic to and from Thunder Bay and is even farther from the mainland than Battle. Porphyry is named for a purple-tinged rock with feldspar crystals found in the area.
Lois Nuttall
The crew and guests, including host Paul Morralee (standing in gray T-shirt).
We are greeted at the wharf in Silver Islet by Paul Morralee, a Thunder Bay filmmaker spending the summer on the island. Ropes, fuel, ice and other supplies are meticulously loaded prior to the 1 1⁄2-hour trip out to the light.
Skippering a 1952-style wooden 26-footer crafted by Jon Olson in 1995, Paul tells us some of his own story. He grew up in the rarefied precincts of the world’s oldest English university town, Oxford, before moving as a boy to Deep River, Ontario, where his dad worked at the Chalk River nuclear plant. After some stints in Ottawa, Toronto and Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Paul settled at Thunder Bay in 1991. From this home base, he has travelled the world making award-winning documentary films.
Finally, we land on a brand new spruce dock and begin the 15-minute walk along the path to the base of the lighthouse and the surrounding buildings. The path is a botanical treasure-trove, bordered by trees dripping with bearded moss that look prehistoric. Even though the Lake is no more than a hundred metres away, the forest floor remains absolutely silent, so much so that it jars me into realizing how much ambient or “white noise” there is back in Toronto.
The lighthouse is a hefty climb, but the payoff is an unmatched view of the entrance to Black Bay, the Sleeping Giant and surrounding islands. The vista stretches to an unimpeded look at the entire length of Isle Royale, the closest piece of American shoreline. (On our map it looks, to this Canadian at least, like Isle Royale should be flying the Maple Leaf instead of the Stars and Stripes!)
Porphyry has a few summer residents this year. We spot artist-in-residence Lois Nuttall, a gifted Thunder Bay photographer, perching here and there, day and night. Paul can take credit for this artistic initiative, along with everything else that goes on here at the light. The hope is that by inviting talented artists, it will inspire their work, which in turn will profile both the light and the Lake.
Lois Nuttall
issi Ranta, Stephanie Cressman, the author and his son Hannibal pose atop the lighthouse.
Also spending the summer with Paul are student lighthouse keepers Lissi Ranta and Stephanie Cressman, who study at the universities of Manitoba in Winnipeg and Lakehead in Thunder Bay, respectively.
Hannibal, Puff and I have tasks, too. Hannibal helps Lissi and Stephanie paint, clear brush, give tours to visitors, even do curatorial work at Porphyry’s new art gallery. Paul orchestrates all this while Lois takes photos and I write. We gather late each afternoon to swim (yes, you heard that right) and this year’s Lake temperature seems to be at an all-time high, topping 70° F. Swimming in Lake Superior on a sunny, windy afternoon feels like the Hawaiian or Greek islands; the waves are enormous and the Lake’s unmatched clarity envelopes you like an azure tropical sea. We’re careful, though. The Lake can and does throw up nasty rip currents known to carry off the unprepared. (The trick is to swim perpendicular to the flow, even if that means parallel to – and not toward – the shore.)
Lois Nuttall
Puff accompanies author Adam de Pencier in a nightly bagpipe serenade.
Puff’s job reflects her talent – fetching sticks thrown into the surf by anyone. She quickly earns status as the “Lady of the Lake,” spending much of her day in the waves (a true fisherman’s Newfie). Her only complaint comes late in the week when she is confined to quarters after a bear sighting. Strictly speaking, she registers a few other complaints each evening when I, a lifelong bagpiper, play highland airs. Puff regales us with her howling – either as accompaniment or protest.
Our five days on Porphyry pass all too quickly. It seems we no sooner arrive than we are packing to return to Silver Islet. Hannibal says that the island is “a place that grounds you: you have to slow down, relax and having done so, you notice everything.”
Journeying to these lighthouses takes you off the beaten tourist paths and, like anything worth achieving, they’re not easy to reach. Anyone who makes the effort will have no regrets, bringing home amazing memories of special places.
And at the end of the day, these lighthouses still have a vital function – their historical resonance complements their practical purpose. Like the canoe and the railroad, lighthouses have been essential in building thriving communities on the American and Canadian shores of Lake Superior.
Long may they stand overlooking the sweetwater sea.
This issue’s Journal writer: Toronto writer Adam de Pencier has travelled extensively around Lake Superior and has written about it for the National Post. A school principal at Blyth Academy in Toronto, he looks forward to returning to Porphyry Island this June with several students. Find Canadian Lighthouses of Lake Superior at clls.ca.