LAKE SUPERIOR -- It's a lonely feeling flying out to the "loneliest place in the world." Just ask E. Neil Harri.

Harri, 64, is a 28-year pilot based in Houghton who captured video last month of the Stannard Rock Light in Lake Superior, a remote lighthouse built on a reef 24-miles from the eastern shore of the Keweenaw Peninsula.

Harri, who flies full-time for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, has been visiting Stannard Rock periodically for the past several decades. On Feb. 28, he posted online a short video of the remote light poking through the lake ice.

Stannard Rock Light in Lake Superior, Feb. 28, 2015.

"I thought I was out there by myself," he said. "Turns out I had 75,000 people looking over my shoulder."

Stannard Rock is built on a reef once considered the top hazard to navigation on Lake Superior. It has the distinction of being one of the country's Top 10 engineering feats and is the most distant from shore of all lighthouses in the contiguous United States.

The lighthouse, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was built in 1883 and automated in 1962. The U.S. Coast Guard still maintains the light as an active navigation aid. It is named for Captain Charles C. Stannard, who, in 1835, discovered the underwater mountain that rises to a depth of about four feet in some spots.

Keepers dubbed the outpost the "loneliest place in the world" and the "loneliest place in North America." It was a "stag station" manned only by men and duty there was said to be so rough that numerous resignations and transfers marked the light's early operation.

Harri, who regularly lands his Cessna 172 on the lake ice, said waters around Stannard Rock are popular with fishermen year-round. He's seen the lighthouse frosted with ice all the way to the top during fly-bys.

"Imagine being out there in those storms."

Lake Superior has melted a bit since Harri's fly-by, although the waters around Stannard Rock are still largely frozen. The Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory estimates the lakes are currently about 53 percent covered by ice.

Ice on Keweenaw Bay is still 20-inches thick in some places, said Harri.

The Soo Locks open Wednesday, March 25, marking the start of shipping season.

Garret Ellison covers business, government, environment and breaking news for MLive/The Grand Rapids Press. Email him at gellison@mlive.com or follow on Twitter & Instagram