A FRIEND OF THE BRYSONS SHARES IMAGES FROM THE LIGHTKEEPER FAMILY'S NEARLY SEVEN DECADES ON THE SLATE ISLANDS. PHOTO: VIRGINIA MARSHALL


VIEWED FROM THE MAINLAND on a calm day, the Slate Islands interrupt the southern horizon with a series of smooth hills. This doughnut-shaped, 10-kilometer- wide archipelago was created when the earth’s crust rebounded from a meteorite impact about 450 million years ago. Eons later, Mortimer and Patterson islands cradle an inner harbor and a cluster of smaller islands like a set of misshapen parentheses. It’s an exposed, 11-kilometer paddle from the mainland—risky enough that most kayakers employ a boat shuttle from the town of Terrace Bay. Few places better capture the split personality of Lake Superior: On the outside,


wave-washed cobble beaches, jagged, slate-blue volcanic rock formations and hardy Arctic plant communities; inside the harbor, verdant black spruce forests and a healthy population of woodland caribou, which are often seen swimming the glass-calm channels. The Slate Islands lighthouse is perched on a 250-foot cliff on the south side of


Patterson Island, where its flashing light once guided coal ships to the railway town of Jackfish. For three decades starting in 1948, the islands captivated late lightkeeper Jack Bryson. While Jack tended the light, the rocky shoreline with its protected wharf in Sunday Harbour, and the deep forests draped in wispy old man’s


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beard, were a playground for the four Bryson boys. When Jack retired in 1978, the Coast Guard let him continue to use the main keeper’s residence on the outer coast as a cottage; a tradition his wife —now in her nineties—and sons keep up to this day, sharing the experience with their own families. For Rod Bryson and his brothers, maintaining the Coast Guard buildings on their


own dime and time is a rewarding trade-off for the privilege of spending summers on the islands. After traveling the world with the Canadian Armed Forces, Rod was happy to return to Superior, explaining that the Slates feel like home—he sees no reason to be any other place. Amongst last-generation lightkeepers, the Brysons weren’t alone in their Peter


Pan-like quest to stay in Neverland. Further west, in the group of islands offshore from the village of Rossport, Bert Saasto continued a lightkeeper’s life after the Coast Guard terminated his contract on Battle Island in 1991. For years, the diminutive Saasto—invariably clad in paint-stained dungarees—welcomed sea kayakers as a break from his self-imposed task of slapping red and white paint on structures around the property. Strolling across a golf green lawn from his immaculate farmhouse, a yellow lab at his heels, Saasto was at first taciturn, but


PHOTO: VIRGINIA MARSHALL


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