Photo credit: “Port Burwell Lighthouse – Ontario (40975060571)” by Mark Wordy. CC BY 2.0.
Built in 1840, the Port Burwell Lighthouse in the town of Port Burwell, Ontario the oldest wooden lighthouse on the Canadian shore of Lake Erie and one of the oldest surviving wooden lighthouses on the Great Lakes. Ownership passed from the federal government to the Village of Port Burwell in 1965, and in 1985 the village formally designated the lighthouse as a heritage property under Part IV of Ontario’s Heritage Act. Community restoration in 1986, carried out by Mennonite craftsmen using hand tools similar to those used in its original construction, kept the tower in public use for decades. However, paint applied in the same era is now believed to have sealed moisture inside the wood, slowly rotting the structure from within. The lighthouse was closed to the public in 2023 after the damage was deemed unsafe and has since been reinforced with temporary stabilization measures.
Bayham Council weighed the lighthouse’s future in a series of staff reports from 2022 through 2024 without resolving it. The Port Burwell Historical Society, meanwhile, argued that community ownership could unlock funding sources that municipal ownership could not. After two years of negotiation, Bayham council voted on July 30, 2026 to transfer the lighthouse property to the Historical Society outright. The Society is now the lighthouse’s legal owner and sole steward.
The Historical Society does not yet know what the restoration will cost. An engineering assessment began on September 1, 2026, funded by a local donation, with a report expected to determine the actual scope of repair. In the meantime, the Society has spent more than a year raising money through community concerts, raffles, a kayak race, candle sales, and small corporate and service-club donations raising just under $55,000 toward the future restoration.
The lighthouse’s predicament reflects a broader pattern of heritage assets being handed from governments to volunteer-run community groups.
Location: Port Burwell (Municipality of Bayham), ON
Endangered Places List: 2026
Status: Endangered
