![]() ![]() There is plenty of outdoor seating around the property where you can enjoy the views of Lake Superior. The same can be said for the surrounding grounds. There are plenty of cozy nooks inside where you can have a glass of wine and enjoy the ambiance with your favorite novel. The lighthouse and rooms were decorated with comfort and style in mind. After sunset, you can watch the beacon as it shines over the lake. As a staying guest, you have access to a part of the lighthouse tower where you can sit and watch the sun set or rise. His passion for lighthouses is amazing, and is reflected in the care exhibited throughout the property. The owner and innkeeper, Nick, is a wonderful host. The inn/lighthouse is the only active lighthouse that is privately owned and operated as a bed and breakfast. We used it as a base for exploring the surrounding UP. “Women have always worked, but the amount of prominence or the visibility of their work has been underplayed for a long time.We stayed at the Big Bay Point Lighthouse Bed and Breakfast in August for four nights. “This was a very important position to have a woman in,” Cook said. When a Northshore-bound ferry caught fire in 1925, she saved more than 200 passengers. Norvell once rescued a Navy biplane pilot by rowboat. Riddle refused to abandon her post during a Category 4 hurricane in 1915. In the event of an emergency, the lighthouse keeper became a first responder. “ were weather stations, so recording the weather in the 1800s was an important job that required knowledge of meteorology.” You had to be your own electrician,” Cook said. “Responsibilities were kind of vast-lots of day-to-day maintenance and some scientific knowledge was required. They lived, worked, and raised children in the relative isolation of a 440-square-foot lighthouse, doing jobs that required round-the-clock vigilance. ![]() Little is known about Norvell’s predecessors, whose handwritten logs noted the daily weather in even, curling script. I just happen to keep a bigger light than most women because I have got to see that so many men get safely home,” Norvell said in a quote furnished by the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation Education Center. “There isn’t anything unusual in a woman keeping a light in her window to guide menfolk home. Elizabeth Beattie kept the lighthouse from 1847 to 1848 Jane O’Driscoll from 1850 to 1853 Mary Campbell from 1870 to 1895 her daughter Caroline Campbell Riddle from 1895 to 1924 and Margaret “Madge” Norvell from 1924 to 1932. “It is unusual that it happened so many times in the New Orleans area.”īetween 18, five women served as keepers of the New Canal Lighthouse. “Across the country, it wasn’t unusual for the man to die and the wife to take over,” Cook said. Even though women weren’t allowed to vote or own property in the mid-1800s, they could become lighthouse keepers. When a male lighthouse keeper died, members of his immediate family often inherited his job. “The job of lighthouse keeper was assigned to a man with the understanding that he would live there with his family, who would keep the lighthouse running like it was a small business,” said Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation Education Center director Chris Cook. Then, it served not only as a workplace, but also as a home for lighthouse keepers and their families. ![]() Situated on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain, the New Canal Lighthouse appears much as it did when it was first built in 1838-down to its original heart-of-pine floors and panoramic lakefront views. Shown here in a museum exhibit, Margaret “Madge” Norvell was the last woman keeper at the New Canal Lighthouse.
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