Illuminating: an illustrated guide to some of the world’s most remote lighthouses

José Luis Gonzáles Macías acknowledges that he was not the most obvious person to write a book about lighthouses. “I grew up a long way from the sea and had no personal connection with the world of seafaring,” he says. “My professional life has been more centred on books than coastlines.”

As a writer, designer, illustrator and publisher of books and graphic materials for museums and other cultural institutions, he had always dreamed of creating a personal project that would put equal emphasis on images and text, but the fascination with lighthouses came later. He had been commissioned to design an album cover and came up with the image of lighthouses floating on asteroids. As he was researching designs, gazing at picture after picture of lighthouses, he says, “a strange attraction unexpectedly took hold of me, and it was as if I found myself trapped in my own isolated lighthouse”. This combination of “curiosity, and a fascination with the unknown”, together with a childhood love of maps, resulted in the idea for the atlas.

He selected the 34 lighthouses featured in the book based on their remoteness and on his interest in their histories, trying to make sure that he chose a variety of locations and stories. “Even though lighthouse-keeping has been a traditionally masculine occupation,” he adds, “I wanted to include a number of histories where there were female lighthouse-keepers as protagonists. But ultimately there were some incredible towers that I had to leave out.”

As he began looking into the lighthouses and the people whose lives centred on these “impossible architectures”, he quickly realised that the book was about much more than the structures; it grew into an exploration of themes of solitude and survival. “The lighthouse-keepers often found themselves in extreme conditions of isolation and survival,” he says. “There are stories of personal courage, of heroes who save lives, but there are also ghosts, obsessions and nightmares. Literature and cinema have often used lighthouses as a means of exploring the human condition. Edgar Allan Poe, for example, in his last, incomplete story, incarcerates a writer in a remote Norwegian lighthouse.”

For Gonzáles Macías, the book also became a way of examining our changing relationship with the natural world. In the process of studying these lighthouses – many of which, he says, are “dying” as they are replaced by automation – did he conclude that the evolution of new technologies in navigation has led to a loss of the healthy respect for the forces of sea and weather that our ancestors would have had?

“Certainly technological advances have broadened our vision of the world, and digital maps and geolocation have enabled us to move around with greater safety,” he says. “But at the same time I think we are losing our link with nature, and with that, the type of knowledge that it’s only possible to acquire through close proximity with the natural world. The sailors of the past would have known that they were at the mercy of the elements.”

He researched and wrote the book during the Covid lockdowns, and so did not visit his remote subjects in person. “For two years I was consulting books, maps, nautical charts and looking at specialist lighthouse sites online. If I’d been able to visit the lighthouses, the book would have been completely different. I feel that travelling in my imagination through territories I’ve never been to has given me a lot of freedom as a writer. After all, Jules Verne never went to Patagonia to visit the lighthouse at the end of the world.”

Did the isolation that we all experienced to a greater or lesser degree during the pandemic give him a greater sense of empathy with the lighthouse-keepers of the past? “There’s no doubt that solitude is present throughout the book. But I think solitude has two faces. If it’s chosen, it can bring peace and happiness, and if it’s imposed, it can bring you to desperation and madness.”

I ask if he has a particular favourite among all the lighthouses in the book. “It’s not a favourite, but the one I think of most now, because of the current situation, is a Ukrainian lighthouse called Adziogol. It’s a magnificent 64-metre steel structure designed by the Russian engineer Vladimir Shukhov, built in the estuary of the river Dnieper. I’m praying that it will be kept safe from the injustice of the war.’

Now that we’re free to travel, does he intend to visit the lighthouses he has spent so long thinking about? “No,” he says. “I’m scared of the sea.”

***

Adziogol Lighthouse

• Black Sea
  Europe
  46° 29^’ 32^’’ N
  32° 13^’ 57^’’ E
  Engineer Vladimir Shukhov
  Date of construction 1908–11
  Date of lighting 1911
  Active
  Construction Hyperboloid steel tower
  Height of tower 64m
  Focal height 67m
  Range 19 n.m.
  Light characteristic fixed white light
  
  Adziogol has set several height records. It is the tallest single-section structure built by Shukhov. It is also the tallest lighthouse in Ukraine, the 19th in the world and the tallest in this book. If you built an Eiffel Tower with a hyperboloid structure similar to that of the Adziogol Lighthouse, it would weigh just a third of what it actually does.

Grip Lighthouse

• Norwegian Sea
  Atlantic Ocean
  Europe
  63° 14^’ 01^’’ N
  07° 36^’ 33^’’ E
  Date of construction 1885-88
  Date of lighting 1888
  Automated 1977
  Active
  Construction Conical cast-iron tower
  Height of tower 44m
  Focal height 47m
  Range 19 nautical miles
  Light characteristic white, red and green light with two eclipses every eight seconds
  
  A story is told about a woman who showed up one day at the lighthouse. With her arrival, an argument broke out between the two keepers. The tension grew to be unbearable: there were chases across the islet, threats with a knife and an entrenchment inside the lighthouse. The unfortunate keeper on whom the door was shut had to stay out in the open for days until the fishermen from Grip village came to his aid. Finally, the authorities resolved to dismiss the two lighthouse keepers and bring the woman back to land.

Aniva Lighthouse

• Sea of Okhotsk
  Pacific Ocean
  Asia
  46º 01^’ 07^’’ N
  143º 24^’ 51^’’ E
  Engineer Shinobu Miura
  Date of construction 1937–39
  Date of lighting 1939
  Automated 1990
  Deactivated 2006
  Construction Cylindrical concrete tower
  Height of tower 31m
  Focal height 40m
  Range 15.2 nautical miles
  
  Fifty years before the lighthouse was built, Anton Chekhov travelled to Sakhalin Island. He described it as a frozen hell. It is possible to reach the lighthouse by motorboat from the village of Novikovo, located around 40km away by sea.

Matinicus Rock Lighthouse

• Atlantic Ocean
  North America
  43° 47^’ 05^’’ N
  68° 51^’ 18^’’ W
  Engineer Alexander Parris
  Date of construction 1827
  Date of lighting 1846
  Automated 1983
  Active
  Construction Cylindrical granite towers
  Height of towers 14.5m
  Focal height 27m
  Range 20 nautical miles
  Light characteristic one white flash at 10-second intervals
  
  Keeper Abbie Burgess, who first arrived at the lighthouse aged 13 when her father was charged with looking after it, died in 1892. In her final letter, she wrote that she frequently dreamed about the old Matinicus Rock lamps and wondered whether her soul would continue to take care of the lighthouse even after it had left her exhausted body. The lighthouse was added to the US National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

Robben Island Lighthouse

• Atlantic Ocean
  Africa
  38º 48^’ 52^’’ S
  18º 22^’ 29^’’ E
  Engineer Joseph Flack
  Date of construction 1865
  Date of lighting 1865
  Active
  Construction Cylindrical masonry tower
  Height of tower 18m
  Focal height 30m
  Range 24 nautical miles
  Light characteristic intermittent red flashing of five-second duration every seven seconds
  
  Robben Island was declared a world heritage site by Unesco (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) in 1999. The former prison today houses a museum dedicated to the memory of the victims of apartheid. Some of the old political prisoners work there and recount their experiences from their lives on Robben Island to the visitors.

Eldred Rock Lighthouse

• Lynn Canal
  Pacific Ocean
  North America
  58º 58^’ 15^’’ N
  135º 13^’ 13^’’ W
  Date of construction 1905
  Date of lighting 1906
  Automated 1973
  Active
  Construction Octagonal wooden tower
  Height of tower 17m
  Focal height 28m
  Range 8 nautical miles
  Original lens Fresnel, 4th order
  Light characteristic one white flash at six-second intervals
  
  It was the naturalist Marcus Baker who christened the islet, giving it the maiden name of his wife, Sarah Eldred. Though it is rather deteriorated, this is the only lighthouse in Alaska to retain its original structure. In an attempt to maintain and restore it, the Eldred Rock Lighthouse Preservation Association was created, in collaboration with the Sheldon Museum.

• A Brief Atlas of the Lighthouses at the End of the World is published on 19 October by Picador (£20). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply