BIG BAY -- The sunset in the densely clouded sky was merely a few pencil streaks of pink. But the vantage point at Big Bay Point in Michigan's Upper Peninsula was spectacular.

My husband and I were standing in the tower of a 113-year-old lighthouse on a cliff on Lake Superior. To the west, the blue-gray finger of the remote Keweenaw Peninsula extended about 75 miles into the lighter blue-gray waters of the "cruel ... queen" of the five Great Lakes.

I recognized the hump in the peninsula as Brockway Mountain, which overlooks Copper Harbor, the northernmost point of Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

This expansive view was worth visiting Big Bay Point Lighthouse. But besides relishing the scenery, we would be sheltered beneath this beacon for the night. This still-operating lighthouse, built in 1896 and on the National Register of Historic Places, is also a bed-and-breakfast inn. It's open year-round for those who want to experience distinctive lodging in keeping with Michigan's maritime theme.

Perfect prelude

On our drive to Big Bay Point, about 30 miles north of Marquette, we visited the Marquette Maritime Museum, a perfect prelude to our lighthouse stay and within view of Lake Superior. It houses a collection of Fresnel lens, named after a French physicist credited with inventing them.

Other displays foster a deep respect for Lake Superior. A glass-encased model shows the two halves of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, believed to have split in two as it sunk in a November 1975 storm. Extensive space also is devoted to the shipwreck of the Henry B. Smith, a 525-foot steel steamer whose remnants were never found after it left Marquette's harbor and sailed into a storm in November 1913.

From the museum, we headed north on County Road 550 to the community of Big Bay. There, we followed lighthouse signs that led us to a dirt road ending at Big Bay Point.

Here, the brick, two-story, late Victorian-style lighthouse and its square tower rise from a grass lawn that ends abruptly at a rocky cliff overlooking the lake. A note on the door invited us to enter, so we walked up a short flight of interior stairs and turned left into a kitchen filled with the aroma of warm spices. There we were met by Jeff Gamble, who, with his wife, Linda, owns and operates this B&B.

The former Chicago residents immediately began a tour, taking us to the adjacent dining room, featuring a long, family-style table and a beverage and snack area. A large living room was furnished with a fireplace, several couches and reading materials about the lighthouse's history.
The second floor houses guest rooms and a cozy library with bookshelves, videos and a double window overlooking the lake. Stairs in the library lead to the lighthouse tower, which guests can visit whenever they wish. Sunset and sunrise times, favorite options for tower visits, are posted daily in the kitchen.

Some background

We unpacked, then joined other guests in the living room for a 5 p.m. talk by Linda Gamble about the lighthouse and the area. The lighthouse was built in 1896 as a duplex to house a keeper and his family on one side and his assistant and family on the other. The beacon was automated in 1941.

In the early 1950s, the site was leased to the military for artillery training. Guns were installed on the cliff east of the lighthouse for shooting at targets over the lake. The lighthouse became privately owned in the 1960s, was repaired and renovated, became a B&B in 1986 and eventually was bought by the Gambles and a Chicago partner.

The nearby community of Big Bay is known as the site where, in 1952, a soldier killed a tavern proprietor suspected of raping his wife. The case spawned the book "Anatomy of a Murder" and a film with the same name starring James Stewart.

Big Bay also is known for its Bay Cliff Health Camp for disabled children and its former Brunswick-Balke-Collender Co. factory, where America's bowling pins were made. The only two restaurants in town have "Anatomy of a Murder" ties: the Lumberjack Tavern, where the proprietor was killed, and the Thunder Bay Inn, where scenes were filmed for the movie.

After a tasty perch dinner at the inn, we returned to the lighthouse grounds for a walk on its two trails -- a half-mile loop through a forest of spruce and birch and a path about a mile round-trip through woods and two meadows that ends with access to the shore, an impressive stretch of rocks ranging from egg size to boulders.

Then we returned to the lighthouse to view the sunset from the tower, about 120 feet above Lake Superior.

Drawn to the light

In the lighthouse library as the wind buffeted a storm window just beyond my wing-back chair, I read William Ratigan's "Great Lakes Shipwrecks & Survivals." In Lake Superior -- the "cruel," "haughty queen" of the Great Lakes -- "not a body, not a trace of wreckage, ever gave clue to ... (the) doom" of the Henry B. Smith, the steel steamer that had left Marquette with a load of iron ore, Ratigan wrote.

I climbed the narrow stairs and ladder past now-dark portholes to the tower's top section where the beacon resides. Within moments, it gleamed like a giant firefly. The beam wasn't blinding but glo