Volunteers Rock

 

They had been slowly making their way through the fog by boat off the western end of Isle Royale. Nearly half an hour of travel and still they saw nothing.

“It should be right in front of us,” said the skipper who had been following his GPS, “I can hear the waves hitting the rock.”

The Rock of Ages Lighthouse, colloquially known as “The Rock,” lies fifteen miles east of Minnesota’s north shore and two and a half miles west of the islands that are part of Isle Royale National Park. Only accessible by boat, the ten-story lighthouse sits on a 50 by 210-foot long rock that projects up from a more extensive underwater reef, home to three shipwrecks from the late 19th and early 20th century. It was those hazards to shipping that prompted its construction in 1907.

Mary Hennessy was on her first trip as a newly minted volunteer for the Rock of Ages Lighthouse Preservation Society (ROALPS). She and three others made up a work team that had spent the previous day waiting out the weather at the base station on Barnum Island. This was their second attempt of the day to reach the hazardous remains of the lighthouse dock. The morning venture, also in fog, had failed because of excessive swells.

Just when they were about to turn back a second time, Mary looked up and saw the fog part, revealing the great lighthouse as it towered over the small boat. “It felt like we were driving up the front door. To see it so close and all of a sudden, it blew me away.”

Mary is a retired Xray Tech and IT professional who had no specialized experience in construction or restoration before visiting The Rock. She was one of twenty-nine volunteers of diverse backgrounds with various skill sets that would participate in the seven-week restoration season that year. In the course of the three days she spent at the lighthouse, she gained experience scraping, painting, plastering, and hauling materials and debris. It was the first year the workers would stay at the lighthouse for consecutive days to avoid the commute back and forth to the island with its corresponding risk of weather delays.

Considered an engineering marvel, the lighthouse was built in 1907 with the purpose of providing vessels traveling between the north shore and Isle Royale, often hiding from the strong winds and high seas of the open lake, a navigation aid to help avoid the fate of the paddle wheeler Cumberland in 1877, and the bulk freighter Chisholm in 1898. They both sank at the exact same spot on the reef, one on top of the other. The added role of lifesaving came into play in 1933 when the steamship George M. Cox ran aground a short distance from the light station in heavy fog and calm seas. Thanks to lighthouse keeper John Soldenski, all 127 passengers and crew were safe, spending the night on The Rock and in the tower.

Over the past six years, work by the preservation society has restored the living quarters on the second, third, and fourth floors - removing and replacing the hardwood flooring, installing fourteen new period-correct double-hung windows, and scraping and refinishing plastered walls and ceilings. The tower’s metal stairs, columns, and landing platforms were scraped and painted in historic colors. Woodwork, especially wood trim, was replaced or refinished, even requiring onsite steam boxes to bend wood to fit the curvature of the concave walls.

Heather and Josh Enevoldsen, a husband and wife team in their second year as volunteers, brought their woodworking and finishing talents to help with trim restoration. Because the location is so remote, with all materials hauled by boat, the right tools are often just not available to get the job done, so volunteers like Josh improvise unique solutions as they go. 

“Since the lighthouse is a cylinder, all of the walls are curved,” wrote Heather in her family blog. “This meant all of the baseboard trim would have to be curved. [Steven] from our crew designed a steam box for curving the wood on-site at the lighthouse. It worked, but the chop saw we had … wasn’t large enough for the trim to stand on end to cut.  So it had to lay on its backside, but it was curved, so depending on how it was held, the angle could get messed up during the cut. Josh was able to make it work somehow, and it turned out really nice!” 

Skilled crafters combine their talents with others like Mary, who “just do it and learn” to tackle the projects planned for the season. One of those craftsmen, Dirk Gunder, used skills from his job as a building restoration engineer to become the  “master of plaster” on The Rock.  He came upon the opportunity to spend a week on the lighthouse in the way many volunteers are recruited. 

“I went down to the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center (DECC) at the Gales of November event in 2018,” he said. “As soon as I got to the last display, I saw [a mural of] the Rock of Ages. It had been 30 years since I’d seen that from the [Isle Royale ferry boat]. I talked with the guy at the display, and he told me all about it. I told him I restored old buildings and loved history, and signed up right then and there.”

That image of the lighthouse had been in Dirk’s mind since he was a young boy hiking and camping on the Island. “I grew up as a kid vacationing on the north shore. Since I was age 3, we spent our summers in Grand Marais. My dad’s dream was always to get to Isle Royale. As a boy scout leader, he decided we’d take a backpacking trip to the island. We had such a great time that [two of my school hiking buddies and] I returned a year later. We’d hike off-the-beaten path to look for historical landmarks and artifacts. I remember coming across an old historic structure and finding Readers Digest magazines that I could still read.”

Another crew leader, Scott Dahlquist, had recently retired as a police officer when he came across an article in a newspaper sharing ROALPS’ need for volunteers. Like Dirk, he remembered the lighthouse on a family vacation as a boy. 

“I’ve always been attracted to wild and isolated places,” he said, thinking back. “The Rock is such a unique piece of history to remind you of how temperamental nature is and why you had to have these lighthouses. It looked like a unique calling.  And it was tied to a childhood memory of Isle Royale. So I applied.”

He hoped he would be considered even though he wasn’t sure in what way he could contribute.

“I consider myself a competent home handyman, but I don’t really have any great technical skills, but I can learn.” He’s since become quite accomplished in chipping, plastering, and painting. “The joke is that the unofficial motto of the navy is if it moves, salute it, if it doesn’t, chip it and paint it. If you think of the lighthouse as a land-locked ship, there’s always painting and chipping to be done.”

The remote location and limited space bring other challenges. In the family post, Heather described that remoteness as a volunteer on The Rock:

“There’s not many places to go besides the lighthouse because it’s surrounded by water. There’s a large rock you can kinda walk around on, but you may get dive bombed by seagulls if you get too close to their babies.  Instead, I spent most of my time either on the deck or in the best places… the observation deck and lens room.  From the top of the lighthouse, you can see water forever, the islands of Isle Royale, and parts of Canada and Minnesota in the distance.  When the sun is out, you can see the reef through the clear water the lighthouse sits on and how huge it is.  You hear the constant sounds of the waves hitting the rocks, the seagulls doing their thing, and the clang of this metal clamp hitting a pole.” 

She continued, “There are ten stories of lighthouse.  I love being given a chance to be one of a handful of people who can spend the night in that amazing place.  That’s why not having the conveniences of everyday life doesn’t matter.  You are already so far removed from everyday life anyway, so what if you have to throw a 5-gallon bucket 50 feet off the side to haul up your water?  And if there’s a storm?  Everyone who stays there WANTS a storm.  The lighthouse is designed to withstand it.  Knowing that you are safe, all that’s left is just to enjoy the rage outside. “

This year presents ROALPS with a milestone challenge, made plain each time the work crew opens the lighthouse for the first time at the start of a season. 

In describing her introduction to the lighthouse that first day in 2018, Mary said, “The dank, stuffy humidity drooped over us as we opened the door for the first time that season. All surfaces were slick and wet. All the fog and all the moisture in the air as we were carrying these heavy backpacks up these slippery stairs to the fifth level - you can’t see because there are no lights, none of the windows are open yet, and the third level was completely dark - every railing is wet like it had rained in there.”

 

When asked if he was surprised by anything in his experience on the light, Dirk said, “I was surprised that first year by how badly that lighthouse leaked. I’m working on the floors and discovered the sleepers were rotten. They were wet. You could squeeze the wood and water would come out.”

David Gerth, founder and Board chair of ROALPS, recently put it this way in a letter to society members. “Freeze and thaw cycles are cracking the exterior of the tower and lichen growth is holding moisture against the tower masonry. This has caused water infiltration within the lighthouse… there is a pressing need to clean, repair, and paint the exterior masonry of the tower to ensure that interior restoration work can continue without the threat of reversal due to water damage.”

A fundraising campaign called “Paint the Rock” is underway to make it possible for contractors to clean, patch, treat, and paint the exterior masonry of the tower during the 2023 restoration season. To donate, become a member, learn more about the lighthouse and the Society, or to volunteer, visit rockofageslps.org .