A lonely sentinel of a bygone era signals the rough shores of Georgian Bay.

On a desolate island inhabited only by butterflies, cormorants and the odd dead seagull, the Nottawasaga Lighthouse stands tall against the wind, water and weather that mercilessly batter the shores.

With burs clinging to their water shoes, board members Stephen Emo and Andrew Karsgaard climb the 108 stairs to marvel at the view and meet with Robert Square, vice-chair of the Nottawasaga Lighthouse Preservation Society board, to discuss the monolith they are working to preserve.

“We came out here to do an assessment in 2015,” said Square. “(We) determined, if there wasn’t an intervention on the lighthouse soon, it wouldn’t last five years.”

A lightning strike in 2014 damaged the structure, and the group decided it was time to wrap the scarred and crumbling outer stone walls.

But a November gale blew in, pulling off the plastic tarp before it could be entirely wrapped.

“Our engineer thought about it and sourced some tarpaulin material that’s used on tractor trailers that go down the highway, and it’s held up since late fall of 2016,” Emo said.

Square said Nottawasaga’s lighthouse was one of only six of its type built on Georgian Bay. The other five “Imperial Towers” — Cove Island, Griffith Island, Chantry Island, Christian Island and Stone Tower — boast the same construction and contractor, John Brown. Brown originally estimated a cost of $14,000 but finished the project over budget at $250,000.

“The lantern room and the mechanisms and everything, the lenses, they all came from France,” Square said. “They were very unique — built in the 1850s when a lot of this area wasn’t even settled yet. Collingwood was just becoming a town the same year this was lit.

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