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Stannard Rock Light

amusingplanet.com

50 pointsweare13815 comments

The hermit in me wants to scoff and say "I'd love to be so isolated for weeks at a time", but (aside from the fact that its the "isolated together" problem) the sheer inhospitable nature of that environment as well as the somewhat involuntary nature of the isolation (you may sign up to go, but you can't choose when to leave) is sufficiently daunting for me that I'll stick to more Walden-esque hermitages.

Much easier at Walden where your mum can come and do your laundry.

Being stuck in confined space with six others, hearing (and telling) the same jokes over and over... shudder

but what if they were 6 mathematicians from the same disciplines, or 6 musicians, or 6 politicians (or 6 sociologists if you prefer that)? might be fun to see what people that share a common background can come up with when they have that much time to "waste". the idea of being left alone with a few clever humans and nothing else to do or to go is actually quite interesting. not the next big brother, but hey...

Having done some multi-week blue water sailing and multi-week backcountry trips, I can tell you that silence is golden. I prefer to go with my dog who is delighted when I have something to say and perfectly satisfied when I want to be quiet.

* yes I know that “Lassie” is not a documentary and if I got in to trouble the dog could not rescue me.

Yeah, there's a reason I said "Walden" and not "200 miles into the Alaskan wilderness".

My ideal hermitage is a small patch of land large enough that I can pretend to be isolated without actually putting me in danger of succumbing to the elements.

I live near this and have visited several remote lighthouses; they're spooky places. I have been involved in some restorative work to this one: https://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=731 - there are crazy entries in the logbook of the Manitou island and Gull Rock lights.

I hope to make it out to this lighthouse someday to get photographs. I’m trying to get as many photos of Michigan lighthouses for an app I’m building. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/explore-michigan/id1024621444

More detailed article with photos of the interior of the lighthouse:

https://www.lakesuperior.com/the-lake/maritime/333-stannard-...

Another interesting article from the same site, about one of the men who survived the 1961 explosion and returned with his family in 2015:

https://www.lakesuperior.com/the-lake/maritime/54-years-afte...

I also found a video slideshow that shows a lot more of the interior

https://youtu.be/ZFst3PVWErw

I think we can draw some interesting parallels with the first colonists on Mars and what they may experience.

Is this kind of isolation different than the one astronauts experience? The record space stay is over 437 days, way over the 99 of the lighthouse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeri_Polyakov

I think the two most important difference would be that the astronauts are basically in constant communication and are also extremely busy.

It might also be slightly different in that I'm pretty sure that astronauts could leave whenever they want (in that I'm pretty sure the ISS always has a capsule ready in case of an emergency). Granted, it would be bad if an astronaut just whimsically decided to land, and you do need to be "rescued" once you land, whether on land or sea, but that's more than the lighthouse keepers had. Just knowing you can or can't leave, if you really, really want to, makes the psychological difference between "a remote place you are choosing to stay" and "a prison".

This seems like a similar setting to the lighthouse in the 2019 documentary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lighthouse_(2019_film)

It does seem similar, but it's an original film, not a documentary.

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