30-thousandth visitor to Chantry Island celebrated in Southampton

The 30,000th visitor to Chantry Island received a novelty ticket amidst cheers. CTV London’s Scott Miller reports.

When Marilyn Pope came from Acton to enjoy a tour of Chantry Island near Southampton on Wednesday, she had no idea she would be making history as the 30,000th visitor to the historical site.

“Surprising. I don’t know. Yeah. Totally shocking,” said Pope, after being presented with a token 30,000th visitor ticket by Marine Heritage Society volunteers upon her return to shore.

Since 2001, Southampton’s Marine Heritage Society volunteers have been taking visitors from across North America to visit Chantry Island and its more than 150-year-old lighthouse.

Built in 1859, the Chantry Island lighthouse and lighthouse keeper’s home starting falling into disrepair in the 1980s.

A group of dedicated volunteers came together in the early 1990s to try and restore the historical structures and bring tours to the national historic site.

By the late 1990s, restoration on the lighthouse keeper’s began, and by 2001 tours to the island off the coast of Southampton started.

“30,000 visitors. It is a big milestone for this organization. And to think it all started with a group of people meeting at the Walker House in the 90s and saying, ‘How can we enhance our tourism for Southampton? What can we do?’ And they came up with this wonderful idea of rebuilding the keeper’s house to keep its cottage on Chantry Island,” said Marine Heritage Society Chair Wayne Kaufman.

Kaufman said the entirely volunteer-run tours will continue as long as there are enough local people willing to keep it going, which with 200 volunteers now involved, means Chantry Island Tours are here to stay.

“With the 30,000 visitors that we’ve taken across over the years, that means that this boat behind us has made over 4,000 trips to that island full of volunteers, and full of paid patrons. So, it is ongoing. It’s a great deal amount of work, but we have an enormous amount of fun doing it,” said Kaufman.

“The Marine Heritage Society, they’ve been doing these tours for years and years now. And it’s one of the best things about our community. One of the best things about Southampton is to tour the island and see the lighthouse on the island. Get out there and being able to climb up and look out across the water and back at the shore,” said Town of Saugeen Shores Mayor Luke Charbonneau.

As for 30,000th visitor, Marilyn Pope, she’s happy to have been a part of history and would recommend the two-hour tours to everyone.

“Oh, it was great. Definitely worth the ride and everything. I was nervous about the stairs up the lighthouse, but I did it,” said Pope.

You can learn more about Chantry Island and the tours happening every day, three times a day, mid-June to Sept. 1st by visiting their website.