Ile Parisienne Light
Ile Parisienne Light - Northern side
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 Ontario
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| Location | Ile Parisienne, Ontario |
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| Coordinates | 46°38′43″N 84°43′26.4″W / 46.64528°N 84.724000°WCoordinates: 46°38′43″N 84°43′26.4″W / 46.64528°N 84.724000°W |
| Year first constructed | 1911 |
| Construction | concrete tower |
| Tower shape | hexagonal frustum tower with balcony and lantern |
| Markings / pattern | white tower, red lantern |
| Height | 16.6 metres (54 ft) |
| Focal height | 16.1 metres (53 ft) |
| Current lens | modern optic, emergency, seasonal |
| Light source | solar power |
| Range | 25.75 kilometres (16.00 mi) |
| Characteristic | Fl W 10s. |
| Fog signal | none |
| CHS number | Inland-1082 |
| ARLHS number | CAN-567 |
| USCG number |
7-14510 |
7-14510
The Ile Parisienne Light was built in 1911 on the southern tip of remote Ile Parisienne in the middle of Whitefish Bay on Lake Superior on a major shipping lane for ingress/egress to the Soo Locks. The lighthouse keeper's life at the remote light was lonely and perilous. It is now a well-known landmark to shipping traffic and pleasure craft. The light is automated and remains seasonally active.
The Ile Parisienne Light Station was established on the southern tip of the Ile Parisienne in 1911 after construction of the Soo Locks increased upper Great Lakes shipping traffic and the need for navigational aids. The white tower is a well-known landmark to lake traffic and pleasure craft. The tower's cast-in place concrete, hexagonal structure was built with 6 tapered exterior wall buttresses, flared ribs at the platform, a gable roofed entrance, small windows, and a prominent, 10-sided, red lantern topped with a beaver weathervane. It is considered a good example of early modern, functional design.
The first recorded shipwreck on Lake Superior was off Ile Parisienne. During a fur trading feud in August 1816, Lord Selkirk ordered the arrest of key Northwest Company leaders at Fort William. Selkirk sent the arrested Northwesters by Montreal canoe to eastern Canada for trial. The canoe commanded by Lieutenant Fauche capsized off Ile Parisienne drowning, by varying reports, 9 or ll people.
At least one shipwreck and the rescue of one castaway near the island shores is owed to the light station's location in the middle of Whitefish Bay on the major shipping lane upbound and downbound from the Soo Locks. The steamship Panther sank 26 June 1916, following a collision during fog with the James H. Hill, off Parisienne Island in Whitefish Bay, with no loss of life. When the steamship Myron sank 23 November 1919, the Vermilion lifesaving crew searched Lake Superior in a raging gale for survivors all the way from their station to Ile Parisienne, but found nothing. The captain of the Myron was rescued 20 hours afterward, found near death drifting on wreckage near Ile Parisienne, his clothes frozen to his body. In July 1920, three bodies washed ashore Ile Parisienne from the shipwreck John Owen that foundered off Stannard Rock on 12 November 1919. The bodies were buried on Ile Parisienne.
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Wikipedia