Stuart Island lighthouses
— — a light kept on for boats that have not arrived.
Not only on a wall.
“A small island reached only by boat, with a lighthouse standing on a basalt point above Haro Strait. Turn Point Light has marked the bend where the strait meets Boundary Pass since 1893, looking across at Canadian water close enough to throw a stone toward. The walk from the public dock at Reid Harbor crosses the length of the island through madrona and fir. The light is automated now; the keeper's quarters stand as a small museum. The water below moves quickly. From the studio.
Stuart Island lighthouses, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Stuart Island sits at the far northwest corner of the San Juan archipelago in Washington, separated from Canada's Saturna Island by Boundary Pass. The island has no ferry service and no public road system; visitors arrive by private boat or kayak and land at Reid Harbor or Prevost Harbor inside Stuart Island State Park. From the public dock, a county road climbs across the island roughly two and a half miles to Turn Point on the western tip, where the lighthouse station has stood since 1893. Year-round residents number in the low dozens.
Turn Point Light Station sits on a low basalt headland where Haro Strait bends north into Boundary Pass. The original light was established in 1893; the surviving fog-signal building and keeper's residence date from the early 1900s and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The light was automated in 1974 and the keeper's quarters are now maintained as a small museum by the Turn Point Lighthouse Preservation Society. The point also marks the international maritime boundary; from the railing, Saturna Island in British Columbia sits about a mile across the water.
Haro Strait and Boundary Pass carry strong tidal currents that can run several knots past Turn Point, and the bend in the channel makes the headland a working navigation light, not just a landmark. The Salish Sea's southern resident orcas pass within sight of the point on a regular cruising route, and Turn Point is one of the recognised shore-based whale-watching spots in the San Juans. Harbor seals haul out on the rocks below. The fog signal still operates seasonally when visibility drops in the strait.