The nation of Canada was created by the British North America Act in 1867 with Ontario, Québec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia as the four original provinces. The area of Ontario was part of New France, the former French empire in North America, from tthe founding of Québec city in 1608 until France was forced to cede its Canadian territories to Britain at the end of the Seven Years War in 1763. Today Canada is a federation of ten provinces and three large federal territories in the far north of the country. In 1798 the southern portions of modern Ontario were separated from Québec as Upper Canada, known after 1841 as Canada West and taking the name Ontario in 1867. Its territory was expanded northward several times and the province reached it present boundaries in 1912. Ontario has a tremendous width east to west, including the entire Canadian side of the Great Lakes. Across this vast area there were once about 250 lighthouses. More than 130 remain, a large percentage of them active. This page lists the lighthouses in the southern part of the province including Lake Erie, the Detroit River, Lake St. Clair, and the St. Clair River. Southern Ontario was divided historically into counties, but in the metropolitan areas the counties have been combined into regional municipalities. Aids to navigation in Canada are maintained by the Canadian Coast Guard. In 2008 Parliament passed the Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act to designate and protect historic lighthouses. ARLHS numbers are from the ARLHS World List of Lights. CCG numbers are from the Inland Waters volume of the List of Lights, Buoys, and Fog Signals of Fisheries and Oceans Canada. For lights near the international border USCG numbers are from volume 7 of the U.S. Coast Guard Light List.
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Lake Erie Lighthouses
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Detroit River Lighthouses
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Lake St. Clair and St. Clair River Lighthouses
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![]() Corunna Range Rear Light, Mooretown, July 2018 Google Maps photo by Nickole Atkinson |
Information available on lost lighthouses:
Notable faux lighthouses:
Adjoining pages: North: West Central Ontario | Northeast: Southern Ontario | East: Western New York | West: Southeastern Lower Michigan
Return to the Lighthouse Directory index | Ratings key
Posted December 16, 2003. Checked and revised September 9, 2024. Lighthouses: 39. Site copyright 2024 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.