PORT BURWELL, ON – The future of the oldest wooden lighthouse on the Great Lakes – and one of the oldest in Canada – may be in jeopardy as negotiations with neighboring landowners have slowed. Built in 1840, the municipally owned Port Burwell lighthouse – part of the Port Burwell Marine Museum and Historic Lighthouse tourist site – has been closed since 2023 because of structural stability issues.
Bonnie and Ron Bradfield were photographed at the Port Burwell lighthouse on March 12, 2026. [Mike Hensen/The London Free Press]
The $99,000 in temporary stabilization measures included affixing a steel collar to the lighthouse, which stands at the mouth of Otter Creek, at the third level, with eight guy wires attached to eight helical piles embedded in the ground. Thayer said the municipality has also been “in negotiations” with an unnamed organization about transferring ownership of the lighthouse. The municipality has also been seeking an extension of a licensing agreement that permits its stabilization apparatus to remain on land owned by villagers Ron and Bonnie Bradfield. “This licence was provided free of charge to help preserve the lighthouse,” Thayer said. “It expired at the end of 2025.”
In an interview, the Bradfields told The Free Press they had been “in negotiations” with Bayham about extending the agreement, but discussions have slowed because of “the principle of the whole thing. The Bradfields, now in their eighties, own the land surrounding the lighthouse, where they operated a company called Bradcranex for many years, Ron said. The land was once home to shiploads of coal transported by the Ashtabula railcar ferry between Ashtabula, Ohio, and Port Burwell beginning in 1903 until the service was discontinued in 1958.
The couple say they have no objections to the municipality continuing to use their land to stabilize the lighthouse, but they don’t want it taken out of municipal control. “They want to give it to Port Burwell Historical Society,” Bonnie said. “But no one has told us what the historical society will be able to do with it. If anything happened to the lighthouse, Ron would be “heartbroken,” Bonnie said. “We think the municipality should be looking after the lighthouse,” she said.
Ron, a past reeve of the village before it was amalgamated with Vienna, was once a member of the Port Burwell Historical Society and the village’s last light keeper. “I have no idea if the historical society has grants,” he said. “No one will tell me.”
Thayer said the municipality has not yet committed to transferring the lighthouse to the historical society. Bayham, Thayer said, “has not made a formal decision about whether or not to be responsible for the rehabilitation.” “The lighthouse is still included in the capital budget,” he said. “But there is interest from another group that wants to lead the rehabilitation. We are investigating that at this time.”
Whether the lighthouse is historically designated under the Ontario Heritage Act , which would protect it from demolition or inappropriate alterations, remains uncertain. “There is some debate about that,” Thayer said. “The bylaw to designate was passed in 1985 but it was not registered on title, which was a requirement.
Chris Wiebe, a spokesperson for the National Trust for Canada, a charity promoting the protection of Canadian heritage, said lighthouses “are touchstones for Canadian history and pride.” The only older wooden lighthouse in Canada, he said, is on an island off the coast of Nova Scotia. “Seal Island in Nova Scotia is a bit older, 10 years,” he said.
Any discussions about demolishing the lighthouse would result in “a large public outcry in the province, and probably Canada-wide,” he said. Ontario does not have provincial grants for projects like this, he said, unlike provinces such as Alberta, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. “People care a lot about culture and heritage and yet there is a lot of disinvestment from various levels of government to support it,” he said.
But Port Burwell could use a combination of federal funding and local fundraising to secure the building. While the $1.5-million price tag for restoration may seem “quite daunting,” Wiebe said the work could be broken into “digestible chunks” until completion. “You could secure the integrity of the building as a first phase, for $250,000, then do another phase for another $250,000,” he said. Several organizations have been raising funds for the lighthouse, including the Port Burwell Historical Society, which has raised more than $43,000.
The lighthouse “was a beacon of hope” for ships caught in storms east of Long Point. “When storms struck, captains who were caught west of the point attempted to claw their way around to the relatively calm and safe waters of Long Point Bay,” it says. “If they didn’t make it, they were almost certainly doomed to go aground and break up on the shore.
A partial restoration of the lighthouse was completed in 1977 through a grant, with additional painting and work done in 1983, the year public tours began. The lighthouse underwent major restorations in 1986 by Mennonite craftspeople. In 2023, a preliminary report pegged the work and materials needed to restore the lighthouse at about $1.5 million. “The municipality has determined it will not have in-house funding available to begin this desperately needed work and will have to rely solely on grants from various levels of government,” the historical society said.
In 2015, Bayham was saddled with more than $6 million in debt after backing a loan to bring a Cold War-era submarine to the lakeside village as a tourist attraction. The HMCS Ojibwa submarine, in service between 1965 and 1998, helped track Soviet ballistic missile submarines in the Atlantic during the 1970s. The five-storey sub arrived on Port Burwell’s shore in November 2012 after a six-month voyage from Halifax harbour.
In 2012, the municipality agreed to guarantee debt from the Elgin Military Museum related to the HMCS Ojibwa project, which included bringing the Oberon-class submarine to Port Burwell and converting it into a museum. When the loan defaulted, Bayham became responsible for more than $6 million, which it paid off in 2025.
Some local residents have been critical of the municipality after it approved improvements to the Straffordville Community Centre in 2023 at a cost of $3.4 million. Bayham received a federal government grant covering about $1.47 million of that cost. Work recently began and includes demolition of a concession stand and excavation and foundation work.
Source: London Free Press
https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/built-in-1840-will-anyone-save-the-oldest-wooden-lighthouse-on-the-great-lakes
