Majestic Lights: The Apostle Islands Lighthouses

A contractor exactingly builds a lighthouse, on the wrong island. On a night of vicious storms, lighthouse keepers within a few miles of each other witness two shipwrecks that together leave a dozen people dead. And a child of a keeper declares life on an island never was boring. "Mother Nature provided me with many entertainments and toys," she says, recalling those days.

Such are the stories of lightkeepers and their families in the Apostle Islands of Lake Superior, just off the northern Wisconsin shoreline. Readers of Majestic Lights: The Apostle Islands Lighthouses will learn of the people who made those lights what they are and of those who are working to preserve them today.

Written by a journalist and lighthouse enthusiast, Majestic Lights includes chapters on each of the six historic light stations of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, plus the nearby Ashland Harbor Breakwater Light. There also are chapters on a local theatrical production on the area's lights, a keeper's logbook, the longest-serving Apostle Islands lighthouse keeper and an annual gathering to celebrate the area's lighthouses.

Balancing it out are an afterword on why people like lighthouses and a short story from a yet-to-be published novel by the author based on the Devils Island Light Station. The title for the book comes from that novel, to be called Black Island. In the novel, the Majestic Islands is the name given for an archipelago in Lake Superior along the Wisconsin shoreline.

The book also includes photographs by the author, historic pictures, drawings of lighthouses and one artist's representations of four of the Apostle Islands light stations.

First-time visitors, lighthouse buffs, seasoned locals and others will find in Majestic Lights a comprehensive look at the best collection of lighthouses in the National Park System.