ALANA WINGATE
Special to The Leader
The Fredonia Honors Program is ditching their books on Saturday, Oct. 22 for a supernatural hunt at the Dunkirk Lighthouse. Honors Program Director Dr. Natalie Gerber says fun is needed from time to time.
“We have three pillars: learn, lead, live,” Gerber said. “In the past, we focused a lot on scholarship[s] and academics. That still matters, but what I’ve seen in the past two to three years through the pandemic is people want an opportunity to go outside their classes to connect and to have other experiences that are unexpected.”
The paranormal tour will have a cover charge of $20 per person. The Honors Program will offer transportation for students by providing a campus van to transport students to and from the tour. However, if a student is going with their family, they will need to find alternative transportation.
“We set this up for Family Weekend as an opportunity, with three tours for the campus and then a late one — the scary, spooky one — at 9 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. reserved for Honor students,” Gerber said.
The lighthouse will conduct three separate tours, containing groups of 16 people per tour. Although the tour will be a paranormal experience, Dunkirk Lighthouse Director David Briska says it will also offer an educational look at Fredonia’s past.
“There is going to be a little bit of a history tour involved in that hour and a half,” Briska said. “Then, the local ghost hunting group, the Fredonia Ghost Hunters, is volunteering to come down with their equipment and go into the buildings with small groups.”
The Dunkirk Lighthouse also known as the Point Gratiot Lighthouse, and it has been on the Point Gratiot property on Lake Erie since the early 1800s.
“There’s been a lighthouse on the property since 1826. Unfortunately, the original house and tower were taken down in 1875 and rebuilt,” Briska said. “So, the lighthouse itself now is from 1875.”
The paranormal tour and ghost hunt will act as a fundraiser for the lighthouse. All proceeds from the event go to help further keep the property up and running.
“It’s great,” Gerber said. “It’s a fundraiser for them, and it’s wonderful that the ghost hunters, paranormal individuals who pursue paranormal activity are donating their services because this really helps the lighthouse keep going.”
Although this will be the Honors Program’s first time partnering with the Dunkirk Lighthouse for a paranormal tour, it will not be the first time the lighthouse has conducted one.
“We do other public ones, like three or four times a year [besides Halloween],” Briska said. “It’s always fun to see what kinds of experiences the people have that come down and take one of these tours because it is a fundraiser for us. Of course, I’m always excited about having people come down and put some money into the museum so that we can continue to do interesting things and update our buildings and grounds.”
For those interested in seeing how many of the ghost hunts are run, you can visit YouTube and type in “Dunkirk Lighthouse ghosts.” You’ll find many videos of things that have happened at the Dunkirk Lighthouse that ghost hunters have uncovered.