Light Hearted

Pater Noster Lighthouse Pater Noster is a small archipelago off the west coast of Sweden. The island group’s name, which means “The Lord’s Prayer,” is said to come from the tradition that mariners would recite the Lord’s Prayer as they negotiated their way around the dangerous reefs in the vicinity. The 105-foot-tall, red, cast-iron lighthouse was constructed in 1868. Erik Nissen Johansen A comple...

Fairport Harbor Light Station, photo by. Jeremy D’Entremont. Fairport Harbor, on the south side of Lake Erie at the mouth of the Grand River, is considered part of the Cleveland, Ohio, metropolitan area. The first lighthouse in the harbor was a 56-foot brick tower built in 1825. The lighthouse that stands today is a 60-foot stone tower that began service in 1871. After a new lighthouse was b...

In the first episode of Be the Light, host Sarah MacHugh sits down with Averie Shaughnessy-Comfort, Executive Director of Presque Isle Light Station in Pennsylvania, for a powerful conversation about what it truly means to serve a community with heart. Averie shares how she and her dedicated team of volunteers work to remove barriers and create access for their surrounding community, transforming...

Nantucket Lightship LV-112. By Arnold Reinhold, Creative Commons license. Today we look back at an interview that was first heard in October 2020. Our guest is Bob Mannino, founder and president of the United States Lightship Museum. The USLM is the steward of the Nantucket Lightship LV-112, the largest lightship ever built in the United States. Bob Mannino The Nantucket South Shoals were a great...

The 1846 and 1902 lighthouses on Ile Vierge. Photo by Jeremy D’Entremont. Ile Vierge is a 15-acre island off the northwest coast of Brittany in northwest France. The first lighthouse on the island was a 108-foot-tall square tower that began service in 1845. It was considered too short, and a new tower was built between 1896 and 1902. The new lighthouse tower is built of granite blocks and st...

In this episode we revisit a conversation from June 2022 with Mike Vogel, who at that time was the president of the U.S. Lighthouse Society. Mike Vogel retired as editorial page editor of The Buffalo News in 2011, after a 43-year journalism career. He was the organizer and founding president of the Buffalo Lighthouse Association, which carried out the restoration of Buffalo, New York’s historic 18...

Jim Lammers, who lives in Minnesota, was educated as an architect back when freehand sketching was an integral part of the curriculum. His writing and sketching has been published in a number of professional journals and on websites. His most recent book is “Lighthouses of the Great Lakes: An Architect’s Sketchbook.” The illustrations in Jim’s book are not precise architectural r...

Lee Radzak Split Rock Lighthouse, on a 127-foot-high cliff on the northwest shore of Lake Superior, began service in 1910. The light station is now the centerpiece of 2200-acre Split Rock Lighthouse State Park. Lee Radzak became the lighthouse site manager in November 1982. Over the next 36 years, he and his wife Jane raised a son and a daughter, marveled at the lake’s beauty, endured gigantic sto...

Ashtabula, Ohio, is a community of about 18,000 people at the mouth of the Ashtabula River on Lake Erie. In the late 1800s the city was a major port for the shipping of coal and iron ore. The first lighthouse in Ashtabula Harbor was a small wooden tower built in 1836. When the channel into the harbor was widened and a breakwater was constructed in 1905, a new lighthouse was built at the end of the...

Light Hearted  host Jeremy D’Entremont with Annamaria Mariotti in 2010 at Cape Elizabeth Lighthouse in Maine This is an edited version of an interview from September 2020. The guest is Annamaria Mariotti, an author and lighthouse historian in Italy. Lilla, as she’s known to friends, is the author of many books, articles, and stories related to the sea. Many of her articles have appeared...

Dunkirk, New York, is on the south shore of Lake Erie, about 35 miles southwest of Buffalo. Dunkirk, with its natural harbor, got one of the earliest lighthouses on the lake. The first lighthouse at Point Gratiot in Dunkirk began service in 1827. The lighthouse that stands today was completed in 1876. The 61-foot square limestone tower stands next to a brick gothic revival keeper’s house. The ligh...

Josh Liller inside the lens at Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse This is an edited version of an interview first heard in episode 16 back in 2019. The guest is Josh Liller, Historian and Collections Manager for the Loxahatchee River Historical Society and Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse & Museum. Josh is also historian for the  Florida Lighthouse Association. Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse, photo by Jeremy D&#...

Lorain, Ohio, on the south shore of Lake Erie, is known for its history as an industrial hub, and it’s also been an important point for the shipping of materials like coal, iron ore, and limestone. Lorain West Breakwater Lighthouse, also known simply as Lorain Lighthouse, began service in 1919,. The building consists of a square tower rising from the corner of a two-and-one-half story keeper’s hou...

This is an edited version of an interview first heard in May 2021. Dianna Stampfler has written countless articles for many Michigan travel and culture periodicals. In August 2004, she launched Promote Michigan to help market the people, places, and products of her home state. Dianna has also been researching Michigan’s lighthouses for many years. In 2019, she published her book  Michigan’s H...

Don Ladolcetta Don Ladolcetta’s new book, Hannah: The Lighthouse Girl of Newfoundland , tells the story of a young girl who doesn’t know what to expect when her family moves to an isolated lighthouse on the rugged Newfoundland coast. What she discovers is a life filled with adventure, wonder—and danger. SARAH Facing everything from the fury of Mother Nature to illness, the Great Depression,...

Russ Rowlett Today’s interview was first heard in episode 19 back in 2019. The conversation is with Russ Rowlett, webmaster of The Lighthouse Directory, one of the most useful lighthouse-related sites on the internet. When Russ was growing up in Richmond, Virginia, his only exposure to lighthouses was climbing the Old Cape Henry Lighthouse when his family vacationed at Virginia Beach. Russ e...

Therese Woelfel Therese Woelfel, who lives in Green Bay, Wisconsin, has held leadership roles in Fortune 500 companies, entrepreneurial endeavors, and non-profit organizations. Her new book, Our Guiding Light , is her first non-fiction work. Therese’s grandfather, Charles A. Linsmeier, was a Lighthouse Service keeper at several stations on the Great Lakes from 1920 to 1953. The book tells the stor...

Dan Spinella created this replica third-order lens for Buffalo Lighthouse in New York. This is an edited version of an interview that first appeared in episode 107 in February 2021. The guest is Dan Spinella, a man who is known for creating amazing replica Fresnel lenses. Dan, who is employed as an engineer at Disney World, began his Fresnel lens research and restoration work in 1992 using both ac...

This is an an edited version of a conversation that was first heard in episode 62 in May 2020. The guest is Elaine Jones and the subject is Burnt Island Light in Maine. A lighthouse was built in 1821 on five-acre Burnt Island at the west side of the entrance to Boothbay Harbor in Maine, which was a center for shipbuilding, gristmills, and fishing going back to the 1700s. In 1988, Burnt Island beca...

Portsmouth Harbor Light, near the mouth of the Piscataqua River in the town of New Castle, New Hampshire, is one of the most picturesque and historic lighthouses in New England. The original wooden lighthouse on the site (1771) was the first lighthouse north of Boston. The present (1878) cast-iron lighthouse stands on the grounds of Coast Guard Station Portsmouth Harbor, neighboring historic Fort...

The first lighthouse on Curtis island at the entrance to Camden, Maine, was established in 1836. For many years, the island served as a signal station for the large steamships that passed by. The 25-foot brick lighthouse tower that still stands was built in 1896, and the light was automated in 1972. Curtis Island Light Station, Camden, Maine. Photo by Jeremy D’Entremont. The Town of Camden n...

This is a look back at an interview that was first heard in episode 122 back in May 2021. The interview is with Elena Hansteensen, who is the owner of Littleisland Lighthouse in Norway, which is operated as a small hotel. Litløy fyr, Norway. (Courtesy of Littleisland Lighthouse) Litløy fyr, or Littleisland Lighthouse in English, is on a small island off the northwest coast of Norway, inside the Ar...

Tom and Darlene Chisholm on a Texas trip in 2022. Photo by Carol Nettleton. Darlene Chisholm of Albion, Michigan, is a veteran of many U.S. Lighthouse Society tours, both in the U.S. and abroad. In the course of her travels, she’s photographed well over 4,000 lighthouses. Darelene was a longtime librarian in the public school system in Albion. Her husband, Tom, was president of the education assoc...

Tim Pettee at Greens Ledge Light, photo by Jeremy D’Entremont. Greens Ledge Light, which was built in Norwalk, Connecticut, in 1902, is a cast-iron lighthouse tower on a cylindrical cast-iron concrete-filled foundation. It’s typical of offshore  lighthouses built in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Male keepers lived inside the lighthouse tower. Under the provisions of the National Histo...

AIS (Automatic Identification System) has been used for years to monitor the movements of ships and aircraft in real-time, helping to ensure safe and efficient operations. The company MotionInfo provides second-by-second data accuracy using an extensive network of stations. A North Atlantic right whale and calf. (NOAA Photo Library) Bob Trapani, Jr., American Lighthouse Foundation Executive Direct...