Lake Ontario Tour

In September of 2002, my husband, Andy, and I took an 8 day camping tour around Lake Ontario, where we saw a total of 32 lighthouses!!

We started out camping in Ontario near the Lewiston Bridge, and on the first day saw the Port Dalhousie Front Range, the Port Dalhouse Rear Range, the Niagara River Front Range, the Niagara River Rear Range, and chartered a boat for $50 Canadian from St. Catherine's Marina to see the Port Weller Outer.

Our second day, on our way to Selkirk State Park in Pulaski, New York, we visited Old Fort Niagara. I was disappointed that the museum and gift shop were closed, as it was after Labor Day, but it is a beautiful lighthouse, and a group of people were getting ready for a wedding as we arrived. We then stopped at Thirty Mile Point and Braddock Point. We were unable to photograph Braddock Point, as it was located on private property with trees covering the entire view for us at the time.Charlotte Genesee was the next light on our tour, and it has a great museum, and we were able to climb the tower! Rochester Harbor, Sodus Pierhead and Old Sodus Point were our next stops. Old Sodus Point has a nice museum and they will provide a certificate for climbing the tower. In the town of Sodus, there is a gift shop called the Schoolhouse - they carry the Scaasis line of lighthouse replicas, among other nice items. You will see it on the right on the way to Sodus Point.

We also saw Oswego West Pierhead, but did not walk the looooong pier, as it was getting late, we were starving to death, and had to get to the campground and set up before dark. There is a fun restaurant there with outside dining, wonderful food, and a view of the light, called Coleman's Irish Pub. It had been a long day by the time we set up camp in the dark at Selkirk State Park.

The next morning we visited Selkirk Light, which is a bed and breakfast. There is a gift shop associated with it in the parking lot across the street, which is a lighthouse lover's dream. After that, we took down the camper and moved north to visit Stony Point (a private home that you can view well from the street), the Cape Vincent Breakwater, and Tibbett's Point. The latter was one of my favorite lights of the trip. It has a museum/gift shop that is usually closed after Labor Day, but there was a bus group touring the light, so everything was open. The area is just gorgeous!

After that, we found our way to Grass Point State Park in New York where we camped for two nights, and the real fun began. We could see Rock Island Light from our campground, not too far from our site. The sunsets were beautiful.

The next morning, we took a road trip up the St. Lawrence River and saw Ogdensburg Light, crossed the Ogdensburg bridge to Canada, saw Windmill Point and the Prescott Breakwater, the Prescott Visitor Center, and crossed the 1,000 Islands Bridge back into New York, where we met Kevin Legg at an Alexandria Bay marina for a four-hour, four lighthouse cruise in the 1,000 Islands. Kevin is a high school biology teacher who provides fishing, eco, and lighthouse tours on the St. Lawrence River in the 1,000 Islands area. We discovered Kevin's tour on Rudy & Alice's lighthouse website, and set up the tour in advance by email. It was the highlight of our trip! It was over 80 and sunny, with the waters calm, and since it was a Tuesday afternoon, there were very few other boats on the water.

We visited Sister's Island Light, Crossover Island Light, Sunken Rock, and Rock Island Light, which is on an island owned by the State of New York, so we were able to dock the boat and walk around the island. Kevin provided much more than a close view of the lights. He was very knowledgeable about the islands, the people who lived there, and the local water fowl. He took us into "Million Dollar Row" to see the beautiful island homes and the Boldt Castle, and filled us in on local lore and history. On the way back, he treated us to cream cheese & herb salmon spread, (the salmon was caught and smoked by him, and the herbs and dill grown in his garden), crackers and soda. I very highly recommend his cruise. For $150 U.S., the memories are priceless.

The next morning, we headed for our final camping destination, four nights at Sandbanks Provincial Park on Quinte's Isle in Prince Edward County, Ontario. Although we still had seven more lighthouses to view, this part of the trip was intended to be low key and more relaxing, with less driving and changing of camps to worry about. And what a park we choose! It was just beautiful. I had always loved Ontario, but this was our first stay in a Provincial park. We stayed in the "Woodlands" which was very quiet and private. The park was very clean (even the washrooms!!), there were three sandy beaches (one of them 3 miles long), a park store, and it was located close to Picton, which is an interesting town full of art galleries, a winery, and even an Ostrich farm! We definitely plan to return.

On Thursday, we took the Glenora carferry (there are also a couple of bridges to the island) to Kingston, the car ferry in Kingston to Wolfe Island, then a smaller, one or two car, ferry to Simcoe Island to visit Nine Mile Point light. It was well worth the adventure, but give yourselves lots of time for waiting in line for car ferries. We had originally planned to visit a couple museums in Kingston after seeing the light, but there just wasn't enough time, so we had a nice dinner, then headed back to the camp. In the next couple days, in between relaxing at camp and on the beach, we visited the four lighthouses still standing on the island, False Duck Island, Prince Edward Point, Salmon Point (also called Wicked Point), and Point Petre.

On our way home, we detoured to another Provincial Park, Presqu'ile Point to visit the light also by that name. The lighthouse is located in the park, and there is a very nice museum and gift shop. On the way through the park, we saw fawns in the woods, and geese on the beach.

Our final lighthouse stop was to see the Cobourg East Pierhead. It was just after that visit that our 1992 van, pulling our pop-up camper, decided, "ok, that's enough". We were about an hour east of Toronto, headed west on 401, when the van lost power and we had to crawl to the exit, and call AAA, who towed the van and camper to a service station and deposited us at the Comfort Inn in Port Hope, Ontario. Not as bad as it sounds, we got a nice jacuzzi suite after camping for 8 days, the van got a new fuel pump, and we enjoyed the sites in the scenic town, before heading for home. The five lights in the Toronto to Burlington area we are saving for a future trip!