News from the Wilderness Classroom - Paddling into Silver Islet, Visiting Porphyry Point Lighthouse

One week ago we were camped on Pie Island in Thunder Bay. Now we are on Vein Island in Nipigon Bay. It's hard to imagine we are now 100 miles further along on our journey. But we still have so many more miles to go.

The first night this week we paddled into Silver Islet. Silver Islet is a very small town on the southern tip of the Sibley Peninsula. It is now a vacation community, but over 100 years ago it was a mining town. In 1868, silver was discovered on a very small island just off the coast. It was only working for about 16 years, but they took $3.25 million worth of silver out of the ground! It was soon after that that the homes were changed from mining homes into vacation homes.

A very helpful man named Ted invited us into his home, cooked us a wonderful dinner and put us up for the night. In the morning, he cooked us an omelet and sent us on our way with a dozen farm-fresh eggs for breakfast the next morning. Ted is one of only five year-round residents in Silver Islet!

Soon after Silver Islet, we went to see the lighthouse on Porphyry Island. The lighthouse is named the Porphyry Point Lighthouse, because of the kind of black volcanic rock it sits on. The Porphyry Lighthouse was the second light house built on the Canadian shore of Lake Superior. It was built in 1873, and there was a lighthouse keeper there making sure everything worked right until 1979. Now, the lighthouse operates automatically and all the buildings are abandoned. It was neat to see the old buildings and the lighthouse, but it makes you wonder what it was like when people used to live there.

We have seen a lot of wildlife in the last week. We have seen three moose, four bald eagles, tracks from a pack of wolves, several loons, warblers, and countless mergansers, geese and seagulls. There was even a two foot long fish that jumped out of the water and hit Dave's paddle while we were paddling. It was so close he could have reached out and grabbed it.