Chantry Island Lighthouse

Victorian limestone lighthouse on a Federal bird sanctuary island

Chantry Island sits about two kilometres offshore from Southampton, protected as a Federal Migratory Bird Sanctuary. The lighthouse on its north shore is one of six "Imperial Towers" built on Lake Huron and Georgian Bay in the 1850s, all constructed from cut limestone and granite to the same design. At 26 metres tall, it remains an imposing structure. The adjacent keeper's dwelling was restored in 2001 using hemlock timber harvested from nearby forests.

Access is exclusively by guided boat tour, run several times weekly from late May to mid-September by the Marine Heritage Society — the only operator permitted to land on the island. The tour covers the lighthouse history, the bird colony (including great blue herons and double-crested cormorants), and the experience of standing at the edge of a very large and open lake. The island was designated a National Historic Site in 1991.

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A story
Building the Chantry Island Lighthouse took four years — from 1855 to 1859 — because all materials, including the cut limestone and granite, had to be barged to the island. The lamp originally burned sperm whale oil before switching to colza oil and eventually electricity; the light was automated in 1954 and now runs on solar power, making its Fresnel lens one of the longest continuously functioning on the Great Lakes.