Michigan Lights - Keweenaw Waterway Upper Entrance Lighthouse

Keweenaw Waterway Upper Entrance. 9/18/22

 The Upper Entrance to the Keweenaw Waterway was man-made to create a shortcut for ships in the early days of moving cargo across Lake Superior.

 Those ships also stopped in Houghton-Hancock to load and unload but as ships got bigger it was no longer possible for them to fit in the canal.

 According to its LighthouseFriends.com page, the Portage Lake and Lake Superior Ship Canal Company was put together in 1864 to dig the two and a half mile canal that would link Lake Superior on the west to Portage Lake on the east.

McClain State Park is public land near the light.

The canal was finished in 1873.  A lighthouse was built to mark the west entrance.  The canal was widened in the 1930s and again in the 50s, which destroyed the early houses and it was when the current light was fixed at the end of the breakwater. 

 

The light is similar to others in Ohio, Indiana, and Port Washington, Wisconsin.  We visited that light in February 2018.

The waterway today is primarily used by pleasure craft.  Very little is left of the shore station but the light continues to stand guard at the entrance to the waterway.

A cement walk tops the breakwater which connects the beach to the tip near the light. 

Photos taken by the author, David Mossner, September 18, 2022.  

Check out other lighthouses from this trip and others in my collection by following this link.