Light Hearted special edition – Michigan’s haunted lighthouses w/ Dianna Stampfler and Nick Korstad

05/12/21 • 75 min

Listen to the podcast episode with this player: Dianna Stampfler Dianna Stampfler has written countless articles for many Michigan travel and culture periodicals. In August 2004, she launched Promote Michigan to help market the people, places, and products of her home state. Dianna has also been researching Michigan’s lighthouses for more than 10 years. In 2019, she published her book Michigan’s Haunted Lighthouses through the History Press. Michigan has more lighthouses than any other state, with more than 120 dotting its expansive Great Lakes shoreline. Many of these lighthouses lay claim to haunted happenings. Dianna is currently writing a book called Death & Lighthouses of the Great Lakes: A History of Misfortune & Murder, which is due to be published in March 2022. Michigan’s Big Bay Point Lighthouse stands on a high bluff on the state’s Upper Peninsula, about 24 miles northwest of Marquette on Lake Superior. The light was deactivated in 1961 and the property was sold into private ownership. Later owners turned the lighthouse into a bed and breakfast inn in 1986. The owner since May 2018 is Nick Korstad. Nick Korstad Before he bought the property, Nick bought and restored Borden Flats Lighthouse in Fall River, Massachusetts, a project for which he was featured on several national TV shows and received a “Keeper of the Light” award from the American Lighthouse Foundation. In the interview in this episode, Nick talks about an unusual experience at Big Bay Point Lighthouse, and he also discusses strange happenings at Borden Flats Lighthouse.

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Light Hearted ep 118 – John Huggins & Dan Romanchik, Amateur Radio Lighthouse Society

The Amateur Radio Lighthouse Society, or ARLHS, was formed in 2000. The ARLHS is devoted to maritime communications, amateur radio, lighthouses, and lightships. Its members travel to lighthouses around the world where they operate amateur radio equipment at or near the light stations. Other goals of the ARLHS include working to increase public awareness of the role ham radio and lighthouses have played in assisting and maintaining safety at sea; aiding with the preservation of lighthouses; and fostering camaraderie and fellowship among ham radio operators nationally and internationally. The ARLHS also maintains a World List of Lights. John Huggins John Huggins is an electrical engineer living in Virginia. He has experience in astronomy, aerospace, and the radio communication field, and he reviews and writes about antennas and other technical topics in various online publications. John became the president of the ARLHS in 2016. Dan Romanchik Dan Romanchik has been an electronics engineer, a software developer, an engineering manager, a writer/blogger/editor, a teacher/trainer, and a website developer. He's written a series of books called the “No-Nonsense Amateur Radio License Study Guides,” and he also has a popular blog on all aspects of ham radio operating. He's been involved with the ARLHS in recent years. Click here to listen to the podcast:

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Light Hearted ep 119 – Mia Certic and Henry Osmers, Montauk, New York

Located at the eastern tip of Long Island, Montauk Point Light is the oldest lighthouse in New York and the fourth oldest active lighthouse in the country. Construction began in 1796 and was completed in the following year. When the light station was automated and de-staffed in 1987, a museum opened in the keeper’s house, operated by the Montauk Historical Society. Then, in 1996, ownership of the light station buildings was transferred to the historical society. Montauk Lighthouse, New York. U.S. Lighthouse Society photo by J. Candace Clifford. Henry Osmers For many years the light station has been threatened by the erosion of the bluff on which it stands; it was 297 feet from the edge when it was first built, and only about 90 feet today. A series of erosion control measures have been carried out, including a current revetment project costing more than $30 million and being implemented by the Army Corps of Engineers. Mia Ceric Mia Certic became the executive director of the Montauk Historical Society in April 2020. She is a writer and screenwriter who’s lived in California for many years, but she’s spent every summer in her life at Montauk. Henry Osmers is the official historian for the lighthouse, and he’s written four books about Montauk history. One of them, On Eagle’s Beak, published in 2008, was the first major history of the lighthouse.