For Want of A Lighthouse: Guiding Ships Through the Graveyard of Lake Ontario 1828-1914

No safe harbours for steamboats or sailing vessels could be found along an isolated 70-mile stretch of eastern Lake Ontario, dominated by the irregular-shaped Prince Edward County peninsula. Frequent storms, rocky reefs and sandy shoals were among the many dangers facing 19th Century mariners. So many shipwrecks mark one narrow and shallow underwater ridge in the region that it became known as “the graveyard of Lake Ontario.”

It was on these shores, from Presqu’ile Bay to Kingston harbour an...