Arrival! Lots of gear on the beach needing to be carried up to the lighthouse. The opening crew checked up on the solar system….it weathered the winter well. Thanks again to the Great Lakes Lightkeepers Association for donating major components. The team also worked to upgrade the lake-water filtering system to be used by volunteer […]
The first team of the 2024 season headed out today. Thanks to our awesome volunteers!
An article that highlighted the South Fox “new light” was the cover story for the Winter 2024 edition of the United States Lighthouse Society’s publication “The Keeper’s Log.” The story describes these onshore skeletal lights that were used on the East, West and Gulf Coasts as well as the Great Lakes. Skeletals were a relatively […]
Our YouTube channel has expanded! We’ve recently added content from presentations, photos, videos, Facebook posts and articles from our archives. Here’s some of what’s available: Presentations covering restoration progress Scenic and seasonal photos from volunteers over the years such as these sunset photos Natural history Documentation of keepers including the station’s Native American keepers […]
In researching the Assistant Keeper’s porches, we searched for whether similar porches were built elsewhere in this period. In fact, we found two instances where almost identical porches were used. One was as part of an addition to the Chicago Pierhead Rear Range housing in 1911. The keeper’s quarters itself is quite different, though the […]
Phil von Voigtlander recently retired from the Board. As a Great Lakes sailor, Phil first visited South Fox Island in the 1970s and periodically for several decades thereafter. In his own words, “It was in 2001 that everything changed. Going ashore at the light station, I was struck by the deterioration of the buildings and […]
This is a busy time of year for FILA. Kathy Sanders, one of our Board members, is up at the Michigan Lighthouse Festival in Marquette this weekend. Board member Pete Koeppen arranged to pick up historically applicable furniture from a donor. Cathy Allchin coordinated transport to get last week’s team returned. Another of the things […]
Had an early pick up of Ben, Jim & James this evening. They’d planned to stay out until Saturday afternoon but the forecast was unkind through possibly Tuesday. Logistics coordinator Cathy Allchin made a quick call. Let’s get them off…now! As always, this team has been extremely productive. A major project was building stairs and […]
Brief report from the team tonight. “All is going well. Siding and doors tmrw weather permitting.”
Eric & Lorinda Maki returned today after 8 days on the island. Their major project was restoring and rebuilding the basement entry foundation. This was a significant project, cleaning up a layer of failed brick, repointing the original fieldstone foundation and building this new cement cap. All materials had to be shlepped up the hill […]