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By Anna Gustafson for the Alaska Independent.
Broadcast version by Mark Moran for Alaksa News Service reporting for the Alaska Independent-Public News Service Collaboration.
The story of Alaska’s oldest original lighthouse begins with a 19th century shipwreck, involves keepers’ isolated stays on a rocky island for close to seven decades, and, most recently, is a tale of restoration and celebration.
After sitting vacant for more than 50 years, the Eldred Rock Lighthouse in southeast Alaska’s Lynn Canal reopened on May 30. A crowd of volunteers who led the preservation work that saved the structure, former lighthouse keepers, and the family of the lighthouse’s first keeper in 1906 gathered to mark a new chapter for this building that once served as a light in the dark for those navigating the often rocky waters of the Lynn Canal. On June 1, the 120-year-old lighthouse debuted to the public for the first time ever.
“It was our goal to open it by this year specifically because of the 250th anniversary of our country, and especially because it’s the oldest lighthouse in Alaska, so we wanted to make sure that we share it with the public,” Sue York, the executive director of the Eldred Rock Lighthouse Preservation Association, told the Alaska Independent.
While there were lighthouses built before Eldred Rock, those structures have since been rebuilt; Eldred Rock is the state’s oldest original lighthouse, in large part due to the concrete that was originally used to construct its base and walls and which was able to withstand being battered by storms.
The Eldred Rock Lighthouse first opened in 1906, about eight years after the Clara Nevada ship crashed into the rocks of southeastern Alaska’s Lynn Canal in 1898. The disaster made the national news, and Congress would go on to allocate a chunk of money for lighthouses in Alaska.
Borne from that congressional funding was the Eldred Rock Lighthouse, an octagonal fixture on a two-acre island in the middle of a canal notorious for bad weather. Lighthouse keepers manned the structure until 1973, when the U.S. Coast Guard, which operated Eldred Rock, began automating lighthouses across the country.
Over the coming decades, the lighthouse deteriorated, and the structure became a pile of hazardous materials like lead paint chips and asbestos. Then, in 2014, a group of volunteers formed the Eldred Rock Lighthouse Preservation Association, a Haines-based group that would go on to lease the lighthouse’s land from the Coast Guard and raise about $600,000 to restore it.
“When I first walked into the building, I basically was walking around on lead paint chips just falling off the walls and the ceilings; every surface was just falling lead paint coming off the walls and ceilings and crunching all over on the floor,” York said. “There were broken asbestos floor tiles everywhere. Water had been coming in through the lantern room door and the cracked windows. The lantern room was completely cracked and awful. You couldn’t barely see out of any of the windows.”
“It was very grimy, very grungy,” York continued. “So I knew we had our work but out for us, and now when you walk in, it looks like a beautiful house.”
About eight years after York first saw the inside of the lighthouse in 2018, the building is safe and once again home to keepers who will once again care for the structure around the clock. However, in this chapter of the lighthouse’s life, it’s not just keepers who will spend time there; the lighthouse will remain open from May through September for day tours, be available for overnight stays, and host artist retreats among other special events like weddings. In August, artist Rachel Levy of Juneau will host a 20-person retreat at the lighthouse. About 21 people are able to sleep there.
There remain projects to be done, York said, including a rainwater catchment system that would make the onsite water drinkable; currently, drinking water has to be brought to the island. But, for now, what’s important is that people can return to the lighthouse, she said. That, after decades of local residents passing the lighthouse countless times on the Alaska Marine Highway, a ferry system that transports people to places often only reachable by boat or air, those who have long been barred from seeing the inside of the lighthouse are being invited in, York said.
“Those residents of these small towns and these small villages in these areas, they’ve been by the lighthouse hundreds and hundreds of times in their life if they live there because that’s the only way to get to Juneau, and it’s the only way to get out of the state,” York said. “So they deserve the opportunity to go in and stay and climb up into the lantern room, and look out, where you know they watch the ferry go by.”
For those who do get to visit the lighthouse, admission is now free because it can be pricey to reach the island, York explained. Once they’re there, they’ll be able to meet the volunteer keepers who the Eldred Rock Preservation Association trains to run the lighthouse for a month at a time. This summer, those looking after the lighthouse were keepers decades ago.
“A lot of people want to return. Once they’ve been out there, and they get to stay out there, they love it,” York said. “It’s just a magical experience to live out there, and so they want to return.”
One of the world’s deepest glacial fjords, the Lynn Canal is surrounded by the Chilkat mountain range to the west and the Kakuhan Range to the east, creating dramatic natural scenes for those at the lighthouse, York noted.
“You’re just looking at glaciers…and snow-topped mountain caps, and it’s just amazing,” York said. “Our wildlife is spectacular. We get orcas; we get seals; we get otters. Sometimes, a sea lion will stop by.”
Anna Gustafson wrote this article for the Alaska Independent.
