Dennis Anderson: Lake of the Woods lamplighter Alan Johnston fell overboard on the job, leaving his dog as the only survivor
MINNEAPOLIS - How exactly it happened, Alan Johnston's death, no one knows. But in the end, on May 13, Johnston's Golden Retriever, JJ, was in Johnston's boat alone, and his master was in Lake of the Woods.
An independent sort whose family in the 1800s was among the first white settlers in Warroad, Minn., Johnston, 78, had been a commercial fisherman, a logger, a firefighter and a county commissioner. He had a bachelor's degree in chemistry.
But perhaps most importantly, he was a lamplighter, and as such was the third generation of his family to set buoys on Lake of the Woods after ice-out in spring and retrieve them in fall before the lake freezes over.
The work is crucial for boaters who traverse the giant lake, whether anglers seeking a day's walleye fishing in spring, or duck hunters chasing bluebills or mallards in autumn.
With Johnston's death, only two lamplighters remain in the U.S., one on Rainy Lake and one on the Namakan Basin, which feeds Rainy Lake and ultimately Lake of the Woods.
Each, like Johnston, is a civilian employee of the U.S. Coast Guard, assigned to set and maintain buoys on remote waters. Lamplighters receive an annual stipend for their work and have access to federal health insurance.
Elsewhere, buoys are set by the Coast Guard or other government agencies.
"Most mariners never know the names of the people who maintain the lights and buoys that guide them safely through darkness, storms, and danger," Coast Guard Great Lakes District Commander Rear Admiral Russell Dash said at Johnston's May 21 memorial service. "But everyone on the water depends on them. Alan Johnston's historic role as a lamplighter is a cornerstone of our navigational safety mission, and it is our honor to recognize his family's enduring commitment to guiding others safely home."
Early last century, the U.S. Lighthouse Service and later the Coast Guard employed as many as 1,200 lamplighters nationwide. Many of the lighted buoys they maintained were fueled by kerosene and had to be cleaned and refilled as often as every 12 hours.
Until 1984, when commercial fishing on the U.S. side of Lake of the Woods ended, Johnston's family and many others in Warroad and Baudette, Minn., set nets in the lake to catch walleyes to be sold in the Twin Cities and beyond.
Safe passage of the netters' boats, as well as the comings and goings of Lake of the Woods hunters and anglers, and passenger- and freight-carrying watercraft, depended on buoys that marked the lake's reefs, channels and harbor entrances.
"My grandfather was a lamplighter for 50 years on Lake of the Woods and he had taken it over from a family member who was a lamplighter on the lake before him," said DeWayne Johnston of Grand Forks, N.D., the eldest of three children born to Alan and his late wife, Nadene. "My dad was the lamplighter for the entire bottom of Lake of the Woods - Rocky Point, Stony Point, Baudette, all of it. There had been lamplighters in each of those areas, but when they died or gave it up, Dad took over those areas, too."
Years ago, buoys were placed using landmarks and dead reckoning, among other methods. Today, buoys are set employing satellite positioning.
"I can remember when I was a kid, some of the buoys were so big they put them on the back of our boat with a tractor," DeWayne said. "They were held down with 2,000-pound weights that we'd place in the boat against cantilevered planks, and just roll them off."
Mike Williams was a lamplighter on Crane, Sand Point, Namakan and Kabetogama lakes - the Namakan Lake Basin- for 28 years.
"A lamplighter's work isn't dangerous on spring days that are dead calm and 70 degrees, especially if you have someone helping you," said Williams, 79. "But when I worked alone, and on fall days when the temperature was 28 degrees with 30-mile-an-hour northwest winds and snow, it was a different story."
The Coast Guard's transition in 1983 from deploying large, radar-reflective metal buoys to lighter foam buoys made a lamplighter's job easier, Williams said.
Buoys' kerosene lights by then had been replaced with battery-operated lights that switched bulbs automatically when one died. Today's illuminated buoys feature solar-powered LED lights.
Buoys that aren't lighted signal obstacle locations and harbor entrances using colors and shapes.
Buoy placement is valuable even to boaters guided by GPS.
On numerous occasions, for example, when my two sons, then young, and I arrived at Lake of the Woods late in the day, we'd run 25 miles or more on the water in the dark. Using a powerful spotlight, we could pinpoint at significant distances the placement of reflective buoys whose locations also were marked on our GPS, confirming our route.
Piloting a 24-foot Penn Yan boat powered by a Honda outboard, Johnston was responsible for placing and maintaining about 30 buoys, perhaps nine of which are lighted.
He often left Warroad accompanied by a friend or relative. But not always.
"Dad had been a lamplighter for many years, and he knew what he was doing," his son said. "At any time, he would do anything he needed to do, alone."
It was ironic, perhaps, that after a lifetime of criss-crossing Lake of the Woods, Johnston died so close to home.
His drifting boat was found in the Warroad harbor.
Unknown is whether he suffered a heart attack or other health emergency and fell overboard. Or perhaps his outboard propeller had become fouled and he misstepped while attempting to clean it.
While the Coast Guard investigates, buoy setting on Lake of the Woods continues.
On Thursday, May 28, the nation's two remaining lamplighters, Tyson Whitbeck of Rainy Lake and Tom Dougherty of the Namakan Lake Basin were on Lake of the Woods, near the Northwest Angle, setting the last few buoys their colleague didn't get to this spring.
JJ the Golden Retriever, meanwhile, has relocated to Duluth, where he lives with Johnston's daughter, Stacy.
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This story was originally published June 3, 2026 at 2:35 AM.