Lighthouse field note
West Point Lighthouse
Built in 1875 on PEI's southwest tip, West Point is the island's only black-and-white lighthouse — and, since 1984, doubles as a small museum, country inn and craft shop overlooking the Northumberland Strait.
- Coastal region
- North Cape Coastal Drive, southwest tip
- Visitor access
- Museum, inn and craft shop — check seasonal hours
- Route role
- Southern anchor before North Cape
Lighthouse significance
PEI's only black-and-white daymark
Built in 1875, West Point stands out from every other PEI lighthouse for one reason: its bold black-and-white horizontal stripes, a daymark pattern found nowhere else on the island. In 1984 the lighthouse began a second life as a small inn, museum and craft shop — one of the few working lighthouses in Canada where a visitor can actually stay overnight inside the tower's base.
Shore context
The Strait side of the island
West Point faces the Northumberland Strait rather than the Gulf of St. Lawrence, giving it calmer water and long sunset views west toward New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The surrounding shoreline mixes sand beach with the same iron-rich sandstone found island-wide — stay on marked paths and away from undercut cliff edges, which erode without warning.
Route pairing
Pair it with North Cape
West Point sits at the start of the North Cape Coastal Drive's western loop, a short distance from North Cape itself — home to Atlantic Canada's longest natural rock reef, exposed at low tide, and a wind-energy interpretive centre. Many visitors treat the two as a single half-day out along the island's western tip.
