If you’re a resident around south Georgian Bay, keep an eye out for the red hull of an icebreaker.
Last weekend, the Canadian Coast Guard’s CCGS Samuel Risley carried out icebreaking operations in Midland Harbour, opening a passageway for the CSL Frontenac to depart.
Earlier in the month, the CCGS Samuel Risley and the CCGS Judy LaMarsh were spotted around the North Channel on Lake Huron conducting icebreaking exercises to simulate close-quarter vessel escorting. The CCGS Judy LaMarsh is a light icebreaker that the Canadian Coast Guard purchased in November 2021, bringing its fleet up to 19. The exercises were intended to train the crew of the new vessel for when it engages in joint Canadian-United States Coast Guard icebreaking operations on the Great Lakes.
According to Jeremy Hennessy, a spokesperson for the Canadian Coast Guard, it’s common to see icebreakers on Georgian Bay at this time of year. They provide ice escorts for commercial vessels and conduct harbour breakouts for commercial ports.
“CCG icebreakers operate on the Great Lakes between western Lake Erie and Sault Ste. Marie (including interconnecting waterways/rivers) between December to March annually, and on Lake Superior once the Soo Locks re-open, typically around mid-March,” he said in an email.
Icebreakers use their bows, which are curved like the back of a spoon, to slide on top of the ice, breaking it with their weight. They create passageways for other ships, free trapped vessels, and help prevent flooding by breaking the ice into smaller pieces. This allows the wind and currents to clear the ice out of the way, preventing ice jams and ensuring good water flow.
From Midland, the CCGS Samuel Risley is headed to Lake Superior to conduct the initial spring breakout for the Port of Thunder Bay. While the CCGS Judy LaMarsh is headed towards Chaleur Bay in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to continue its training exercises in shallower ports, such as Shippagan and Caraquet, Hennessy said.
The Canadian Coast Guard advises that people stop all ice activities while icebreaking operations are happening in the area, including walking on the ice, fishing, and snowmobiling. Even after the icebreakers have left, the public should remain cautious. “The ice may move, creating a real danger for anyone on it,” the Canadian Coast Guard said in a statement.
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Buried amongst a series of hunting regulation changes proposed last November by Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) was an amendment pertaining to two private islands off the coast of Georgian Bay, near Owen Sound. The amendment read: “Start the existing rifles, shotguns, muzzle-loading guns, and bows seasons in WMUs 83B and 83C on October 1.”
WMU stands for wildlife management unit. Ontario is divided into 95 of them. It’s how the MNRF monitors wildlife populations while doling out hunting licenses. A WMU’s hunting regulations can change based on the size of its wildlife population.
The designations 83B and 83C correspond with two private islands: Griffith Island and Hay Island, respectively. The amendment, pushed through by the provincial government, extended both islands’ rifle deer hunting seasons from 11 weeks to 13 weeks, the longest in the province. Far longer than the average two weeks designated to most WMUs in Ontario. In fact, on the mainland, only a quick boat ride away, the rifle deer hunting season lasts all of seven days.
So, why do two private islands need such a long rifle deer hunting season?
An astute reader of the Narwhal brought this fact to the attention of Emma McIntosh, the publication’s Ontario reporter. “[He] found out about it through his own networks and researched it for a couple of months before reaching out to me,” she says.
As McIntosh dug into the story, she discovered that Griffith Island is owned and operated by a private hunt club, one that has long-standing ties with elite North American clientele, including CEOs, sport executives, and politicians.
Former Ontario premier and Conservative Party member John Robarts served as the Griffith Island Club’s first president after its founding in 1973. In 2004, the Globe and Mail reported on a lavish hunting trip taken by Conservative Party members on Griffith Island, including a former minister of municipal affairs and a close advisor to the Ontario Premier at the time. The trip was paid for by Hydro One.
Today, the club has around 70 members, offering 22 rooms for overnight stays, a private chef, a sauna, a ferry service, and its own landing strip for small, chartered planes.
Ron McCulloch, a hunter who lives in the Georgian Bay area, worked as a guide on Griffith Island in 1996 and 1997. He remembers members travelling from all over Canada and the U.S. to hunt on the island. At that time, McCulloch says membership cost $50,000 to join, plus annual dues.
As a guide, McCulloch was responsible for leading two hunts a day. Staff at the club are responsible for managing the island’s wildlife population through breeding. Pheasant is the most popular hunting game on the island. The birds are kept in pens until it’s time to hunt, and then released into fields.
With no predators, few vehicles, and lots of space to graze, the island is also an ideal ecosystem for white-tailed deer. Some have been known to swim between the mainland and the island. Staff are responsible for tracking and managing the deer population, with strict rules around how many bucks can be harvested, requiring them for breeding.
“There’s a hell of a population of deer on that island,” McCulloch says. “There are a couple hundred deer.”
Considering the island measures a total of 2,300 acres, that is a dense deer population. According to the provincial government’s harvesting records, approximately 70 deer were killed on Griffith Island last year. A former club guide, who asked not to be named, says the island has so many deer that the club has difficulty meeting its WMU harvesting quota.
Hay Island, on the other hand, also privately owned, only harvested one deer last year.
In an email from the MNRF, a government spokesperson explained that this dense deer population is the reason for the longer hunting season. “The longer timeframe reflects the lower risk of an unsustainable harvest—these islands lack predators, and the longer rifle season supports a sustainable hunt and enables deer population management on the islands.”
The MNRF also pointed out that sections of northern Ontario have similar rifle deer hunting seasons due to their higher-than-average deer populations and lower human populations.
The Griffith Island Club echoed the MNRF in its own email response to the extension. “Griffith Island is a unique ecosystem by virtue of being an island with limited access. It was designated a separate wildlife management unit by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry many decades ago. As a result of this designation the ministry sets season lengths and harvest limits, as it does for all other WMUs in Ontario.
Experienced game and habitat managers monitor the health and viability of the deer population and provide the MNRF with relevant data so that the ministry can set the appropriate length of season to maintain a healthy population.
The island membership is comparatively small, there is little natural predation on the island, and left unchecked, the deer population would quickly grow to unsustainable levels, risking malnutrition, disease, and death,” the club said.
Mark Ryckman, the manager of policy for the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters (OFAH), says this explanation checks out. The government’s goal is to balance wildlife populations with available habitat, he explains.
“Increasing harvest is open to debate, whether or not that’s the best option,” Ryckman says. “But it is the option that [the government] chose to go forward with. It’s also the cheapest, from the government’s perspective. All they do is allow every firearm type for the entire length of the season. That really doesn’t cost them anything. They just allow the hunters that do have that exclusive opportunity to harvest more deer.”
This doesn’t make the extended hunting season any less contentious, though. Ryckman says the OFAH has had concerns about both Griffith Island and Hay Island for the past 10 years. When the government opened the islands’ hunting extensions to public consultation, the OFAH made sure to comment.
“We don’t want to see hunting become a pastime or a recreational activity that is only available to the wealthy,” Ryckman says. “These are public resources managed by public servants using public tax dollars on behalf of all Ontarians, not just landowners, not just the rich. These are resources that should be available to all Ontarians.”
Optically, Ryckman acknowledges that an elite hunting club with ties to Canadian politicians getting an extended rifle hunting season doesn’t look good. But from a conservation standpoint, the OFAH has no concerns about the number of deer being harvested.
Hunters in the area don’t seem bothered by the club’s extended rifle season, either. “It makes no difference to me whatsoever,” says Craig Lalonde, a Georgian Bay hunter. “Ultimately, if it’s a private club, it’s kind of a closed environment. Nothing that happens there impacts me, or, in my opinion, what’s going on throughout Ontario.”
Greg Edwards, the president of the Georgian Bay Hunters and Anglers Association, says that from a conservation perspective, Griffith Island’s extended rifle season makes sense. “I don’t think it’s good to have that many deer all in one area, because they’re going to get interbred, and then you’re going to create some more problems,” he says. “So, it’s better to thin them out now, and then you’re going to have a better population of deer in the future.”
Whether one agrees with the club’s extended rifle season or not, it appears to be driven by a legitimate reason. What was troubling for McIntosh, though, who broke the story, was the lack of transparency from the government. The islands’ hunting extension was buried among a long list of amendments, and when McIntosh reached out to the government to ask about the extension, she was stonewalled.
“Private clubs are allowed to ask for things that they want or are allowed to enjoy things that are given to them by law,” McIntosh says. “But it really is a question of trust in people who manage our natural resources. And I think it is troubling when the people making those decisions are unable to explain what they’re doing, and even more so when they refuse to explain why they’re doing it.”
A dispute over a controversial cottage built on a Georgian Bay island has finally been resolved.
On Nov. 7, the Township of Carling, a three-hour drive north of Toronto, entered into a settlement agreement with Alan Gertner, the owner of an in-progress cottage on Morlock Island. Gertner, the CEO of Tokyo Smoke, a lifestyle brand with ties to cannabis, started construction on the cottage in the fall of 2020 without a building permit.
As part of the settlement, Gertner will be allowed to keep his cottage where it is but has lost building permissions for other structures on the island and will have to pay for all staff time that went into negotiating the outcome of his cottage.
Gertner bought the three-acre island in 2018. At the time, a small, 1960s cottage sat on the property. In 2019, Gertner applied for and received two building permits from the Township of Carling. One permit was for a 49-square-metre sleeping cabin, and the second permit allowed for a 17-square-metre enclosed porch to be added to the existing cottage.
In the fall of 2020, Gertner determined that the enclosed porch couldn’t be added to the existing cottage due to its structural condition. Instead, he broke ground on a new cottage on the opposite side of the island without applying for a building permit. Contractors started work on the new structure, building it within 4.6 metres of the waterfront, violating Carling’s shoreline protection bylaw, which stipulates that all new builds must be 20 metres back from the waterfront.
In December 2020, Gertner applied for a building permit for the new cottage without telling the township that construction had already started. When the township discovered how close to the water Gertner planned to build, Carling’s planning department said that a survey of the property needed to be conducted to see what kind of impact the build would have on the surrounding ecosystem before a building permit could be issued.
Soon after, the township started receiving complaints from neighbouring properties about a cottage going up on Morlock Island next to the water’s edge. The township’s chief building official, Naythan Nunes, visited the site in May of 2021 and found contractors working on a structure that had already been framed and roofed. He issued a verbal stop-work order to the contractors, who complied.
All work on the property froze and the township fined Gertner for building without a permit. The township didn’t release the fine amount, but under Ontario’s Building Code Act, an individual who builds without a permit can be fined up to $50,000 for a first offence.
In the meantime, the township debated whether to grant Gertner a building permit with an amendment to the township’s official planning act, allowing him to keep his cottage in its current location. If the township decided not to grant the amendment, Gertner would have to pay to relocate his cottage 20 metres back from the water.
This process extended into the winter of 2021/2022. During this time, Gertner negotiated with the township to allow his contractors to put up the cottage’s siding to protect the interior from the elements. The township agreed, but let Gertner know that there was still the possibility the cottage would have to be torn down, making the siding a gratuitous expense.
In late January 2022, the township held a council meeting to allow Gertner to plead his case while also hearing from neighbouring property owners about their thoughts on the cottage.
The neighbours were unforgiving. Most speakers said the township should not grant Gertner the amendment, voicing concerns that the decision could set a dangerous precedent, convincing others that they could also build without a permit.
During his opportunity to speak, Gertner apologized to the community for betraying their trust by building without a permit. He did, however, point out that from an environmental perspective, his cottage was in the best location on the island. Gertner’s lawyer, Michael Cook, expanded on the argument, noting that the cottage damaged minimal vegetation and didn’t impact fish habitats or any endangered species in the area.
Council deferred its decision on the permit until an outside professional planner could draft a report on the impacts of the build. Gertner said he would also have an outside planner conduct an assessment.
In July, council reconvened to decide the fate of the Morlock Island cottage. John Jackson, a planner based in Parry Sound, recommended that council deny Gertner’s application for a building permit, stating that the cottage is unlawful.
“The appropriate requirement is to have the owner remove the offending structure,” Jackson wrote in his report.
After listening to Jackson, council was quick to deny Gertner’s application.
Unwilling to tear down his cottage, Gertner filed an appeal with the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT), which adjudicates on matters of land use and planning in the province.
But before an OLT hearing could be scheduled, Gertner’s lawyer sent the township’s solicitor a settlement agreement on October 21. After careful consideration, the township agreed to the settlement, allowing Gertner to keep his cottage.
In a statement, the township said that it agreed to the settlement because all other structures on the island were legal, the planning report showed that construction of the new cottage caused no negative environmental impacts, and there was concern that Gertner’s OLT appeal would succeed. The township’s solicitor also pointed out that Carling had granted permits to builds in the past that were less than 20 metres from the water without a site-specific official plan amendment.
“Carling Township Council, after much deliberation, careful review, and extensive discussions with the Township Solicitor as well as the Solicitor’s internal planning staff, has come to the decision that it was in the Township’s best interest to enter into a settlement agreement with the owner of Morlock Island,” the township said.
It’s a sad day for Georgian Bay—after eight years in operation, The Hive in Honey Harbour, Ont., will close its flagship location after Thanksgiving weekend.
“It’s one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make,” says owner Lauren Patchett, who opened the store in 2014 when she was just 22 years old. “The store is my baby.”
After initially leasing the building from the previous owner, Lauren was able to purchase the property in 2016 with the help of her parents. “We went in together as an investment,” says Lauren. But earlier this summer, the family made the difficult decision to sell the building. “They need their share to rebuild a new home. And the difference between the market between last summer and this summer is so profound that when my parents did get a firm offer, we had to take it.” Shortly after they accepted the offer in May, the prices in the area dipped down.
The future of the building is yet to be determined, but the space will not be a retail store going forward. “Maybe I could have found another silent partner to help keep the place alive,” says Lauren. “But at the same time, I’m one of those people who needs to start a project. I like to bounce around.” Lauren opened a second location in Collingwood in late 2018 that she plans to expand. She’ll also focus her efforts on building out The Hive’s online store.
In the eight years that The Hive has been open, it’s grown to be much more than just a store. In addition to clothing and art inspired by the Bay, Lauren added an in-store café, a day spa in a nearby bunkie, and yoga classes on the dock overlooking the lake. It’s become a hub for the community, a place that flourished in a small town where businesses struggle to survive more than one summer. “I love the Collingwood store, but from the bottom of my heart, it’ll never mean as much to me as the Honey Harbour store,” says Lauren.
But this may not be the end of the road for The Hive in Honey Harbour. “We’re looking at locations right now to potentially do a summer-long pop-up,” says Lauren. “That could be really exciting.”
As for Lauren herself, she might take on an entirely different project. “I was really inspired through COVID and my own personal struggles with mental health to get more involved in the mental health industry. I’d like to find a way to marry that with Georgian Bay,” she says. “I’m kind of starting over, and it’s a little nerve-racking, but it’s also exciting.”
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Cottagers on the Trent-Severn Waterway, not far from Big Chute Marina, contended with 24 hours of mischief last week after Ontario Provincial Police arrested a 41-year-old man from Toronto who was causing disturbances in the area.
On September 5 around 12:04 p.m., the Southern Georgian Bay OPP detachment responded to a call about a neighbour disturbing several cottagers along John Buchler Road in Georgian Bay Township. Const. David Hobson said at present, OPP are unable to release information about what the man was doing.
By the time OPP arrived the accused, later identified as Thomas Dibaise, had jumped into the waters of Six Mile Channel, just off of John Buchler Road, and fled. With assistance from the OPP Marine Unit, officers found Dibaise approximately three hours later, still in the water, near Little Chute—south of Six Mile Channel.
Officers arrested Dibaise and charged him with mischief, which includes obstructing, interrupting, or interfering with the lawful use, enjoyment, or operation of a property. According to Hobson, examples of mischief can range from blasting excessive noise at inappropriate times to driving a Sea-Doo back and forth too close to someone’s dock—any action, within reason, that prevents an owner from enjoying their property.
Officers also charged Dibaise with escaping lawful custody, and six counts of uttering threats to cause death or bodily harm. Officers released Dibaise, who was staying at a cottage in the area, under conditions, with the understanding that he would appear before the Ontario Court of Justice on October 27.
This, however, wasn’t the OPP’s last interaction with Dibaise. The next morning on Sept. 6, just before 8 a.m., emergency services received calls about a fire at the cottage Dibaise was staying at. OPP officers and the Georgian Bay Township Fire Service responded to the call. According to Hobson, there were no visible flames, but smoke billowed out of the cottage.
Fire services extinguished the smoke, but during that time, Dibaise fled the scene. OPP eventually found him driving along Whites Falls Road in Severn Township.
To safely halt the vehicle, OPP deployed a spike belt along the road, which punctured and deflated the tires of Dibaise’s vehicle. Officers arrested Dibaise again, charging him with a second count of mischief, dangerous operation of a vehicle, four counts of failure to comply, and stunt driving.
This time, officers did not release Dibaise after his arrest, instead transporting him to the Southern Georgian Bay OPP detachment where he remains in custody. Dibaise will appear before the Ontario Court of Justice at a future date.
Despite 40 bears being struck and killed by vehicles driving along Highway 400 between Honey Harbour Road, Georgian Bay Township, and the Town of Parry Sound in August, there appears to be no definitive answer in regards to the number of sightings being reported and the spike in the number of bears killed.
Mike McIntosh, founder, and president of Bear With Us, stresses that it doesn’t reflect an increase in the Georgian Bay black bear population. “That area probably hasn’t changed much in the last decade or two,” he says. Instead, McIntosh theorizes that it has to do with food sources.
“There’s a move around this time of year because of hyperphagia, which means that [the bears] are hungry, constantly trying to fatten up for hibernation,” McIntosh says. “Food sources have become more or less scarce in certain areas, and that makes [bears] travel a lot. And then most of these busy four-lane highways, from what I’ve seen, are even busier than normal.”
As highways become more populated and people drive faster, it makes it more difficult for bears to safely cross. When bears do want to cross a highway, they’ll watch the road from the edge of the woods and wait for a gap, McIntosh says. But their cubs don’t always follow, meaning the mother has to backtrack across the highway to grab them. This is often when they get hit.
McIntosh says the OPP’s estimate of 40 dead black bears along Highway 400 is likely underreported. “The police don’t usually get a call unless the bear-vehicle collision does some damage to the car and maybe they’re needed for an insurance claim,” he says. “In the last month, I’ve seen quite a few dead cubs in the road, which wouldn’t damage a vehicle because they’re the size of a house cat.”
If the province wants to prevent bear collisions, McIntosh says it needs to invest in wildlife corridors, such as bridges or tunnels that help the animals bypass highways, as well as fences along both sides of the road.
As for drivers, the OPP recommends sticking to the posted speed limits, scanning well ahead of the vehicle, watching ditches and shoulders, and using proper headlamps, especially around dusk and dawn.
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On August 10, during a Protective and Development Services meeting in Tay Township, Ont., Todd Weatherell, the township’s manager of planning and development services, broached the idea of introducing a zoning bylaw for docks.
Currently, Tay Township has no zoning bylaws pertaining to docks, meaning there’s no limit on the length, width, and height of a dock, or how many docks can be on the property. You also don’t need a permit to build or rebuild a dock.
Weatherell, who started working for Tay Township last September, says he’s never seen a building permit for a dock pass through his office. “We only regulate the setback,” he says, which is how close to the water you can build a structure from your property line.
Weatherell used to work for the Township of Georgian Bay, which does have bylaws around dock size. For properties in the township with frontage on Georgian Bay, docks with a ramp can’t be longer than 26 metres or wider than four metres. These measurements do differ depending on location.
Seeing the Township of Georgian Bay’s bylaws did, in part, motivate Weatherell to bring forward the suggestion, but it was also in response to a July 27 town council presentation made by a resident unhappy with the size of his neighbour’s newly rebuilt dock. The resident claimed that the dock blocked his view of Georgian Bay, and suggested that the township introduce permits for docks.
The dock in question measures 90 metres in length and includes a railing. But according to the dock’s owner, there are reasons for its size. The dock was rebuilt on a new crib, raising the front eight inches and the end six inches. This is to prevent the dock from being swept away by high water levels, which is what happened to the last dock, the owner says. Otherwise, the dock’s length and width are the exact same as they’ve been for the last 20 years.
The reason for the extensive length is that the dock is built on shallow water. The only way to keep a boat on the property was to extend the dock out into deeper waters. As for the railing, the owner, who’s 87, says he’s unable to walk without a support. The railing allows him to continue enjoying his dock.
With an increasing number of baby boomers retiring to cottage country, and water levels, especially in the Great Lakes, impacted by climate change, Tay Township will have to consider a variety of factors if it does decide to implement dock zoning bylaws.
“We’re looking into potentially creating bylaws that will enforce length and setbacks, but again, that will be up to council and planning, and subject to a public meeting process,” Weatherell says.
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By the time her birthday rolls around in late August, Christina Jones has been at her island cottage since mid-June, mostly by herself, and basically marooned. There’s a kayak and a rowboat, but the septuagenarian is at the end of Baie Fine—a freshwater fjord culminating in the Pool, a lake-like pocket surrounded by Killarney Provincial Park—and the nearest marina, the one that taxied her in here, is some 20 kilometres away. Cell coverage is iffy, at best, and Christina typically can’t be bothered even trying.
The days have bobbed along, borne on the rhythms of reading and knitting, of fetching water from the lake, of visits from kingfishers and snapping turtles. Often it’s enough to simply gaze at the circumvallate hills, chalky in colour but harder than marble, not to mention older than the Alps.
These ancient peaks are also greener than they were a half-century ago, a forest thinned by axes and acid rain now thickening back up. Christina can see her whole life reflected in this setting, although the sequence isn’t necessarily linear. One moment she’s a child, the next a grandmother. The shadows of pines are more real than the hands on a clock; calendar squares cease to mean much, or at least become an afterthought. “I turned 74 yesterday,” she announces when I show up, a day late. Or just in time, depending on how you look at it. “I thought,” she says, “it was today.”
Photo by Peter Baumgarten
Christina and her family
Christina Jones (centre) holds a photo of her grandfather Newland Spreadborough, who built the family cottage nearly 100 years ago.
Photo by Peter Baumgarten.
Christina’s island cottage
She punches bears. Her grandkids call her “the inappropriate grandmother.” And she’s reigned over northern Georgian Bay for decades.
Photo by Peter Baumgarten
Christina’s cottage exterior
The rudimentary abode, comprising roughly 1,300 square feet, took shape in
the late 1920s out of wood scavenged from a derelict boat.
Photo by Peter Baumgarten.
Christina in Baie Fine
Christina has been coming to the island cottage in Baie Fine—one of the largest freshwater fjords in the world—since she was a one-year-old.
Her daughter, Christianna, has naturally kept track, arriving with husband, Peter, and three of their grandkids to fete the matriarch on the appropriate date. Her favourite present? An artifact that great-grandson Ayden produces after a bit of treasure hunting along the shore. It’s an old iron clamp that was originally used to secure log booms and later repurposed as a weight for a water line. Ayden, 11, finds it in the water but unattached to anything—except, of course, the very roots of his family’s connection to this unique nook of northern Georgian Bay.
“My grandfather Newland Spreadborough came here to work as a scaler for the Spanish River Logging Company in 1904,” says Christina. “He lived here year-round and loved it.” The timber operation was based on the east shore of the Pool (an old company house built in 1911 is still discernible from the Jones cottage) and Newland’s wife, also a Christina, would join him in the summer with the kids, travelling from the family home in Bracebridge, Ont. “My mother was six weeks old when she came here for the first time.”
Christina was not much older on her inaugural jaunt. “I was just starting to walk,” she says. “My aunt Ellen went out to the backyard (of the Bracebridge home) and said to Grandfather, ‘the baby and I are going to Baie Fine.’ ” At that time, reaching the inlet from Muskoka was still a circuitous, multi-stage journey by rail and water. “You switched trains in North Bay, and then we would get a boat,” she says. “The first time we came in, the idea was to stay for two weeks, and my aunt said to heck with it, ‘we’re going to stay for the summer.’ ”
That was 1948, so communication was even trickier than it is now—you can get a ping from a tower in some parts of Baie Fine, though rarely in the Pool—yet her aunt was able to “get a message out” from a resort at the fjord’s entrance regarding the change in plan, as well as order provisions from Little Current, on Manitoulin Island. “They checked to see if a yacht was coming in,” Christina says. “And in came our groceries.”
Ever since, the cottager has spent her birthday in Baie Fine, barring a few years when work or family obligations got in the way. “As long as I’ve been able to go, I’ve gone,” she says. “This is my Prozac. If I can’t come here, I’m going to call MAID (medical assistance in dying).”
Photo by Peter Baumgarten.
Baie Fine
There’s a
kayak and a rowboat, but the septuagenarian is at the end of Baie Fine—a freshwater
fjord culminating in the Pool, a lake-like pocket surrounded by Killarney Provincial Park
—and the nearest marina, the one that taxied her in here, is some 20 kilometres away.
Photo by Peter Baumgarten.
Christina’s Blue Willow dish collection
In the cabin, Christina displays her various collections, including Blue Willow dishes from Eaton’s,
oil lamps, and paddles.
Photo by Peter Baumgarten.
Christina’s cottage interior
One room of the cottage was effectively a dance hall, and to this day a
working gramophone remains, along with the same hardwood planks upon which the
girls (and the young lumberjacks or sailors who served as dance partners) did the
Charleston, or whatever moves were in vogue.
Christina can be blunt, and also very funny. Of a Pomeranian who hops on the picnic table while we’re chatting—a beloved but somewhat badass rescue she adopted a few years back—she says, “that’s Tucker, but we sometimes change a syllable.” Rarely, if ever, does she seem to feel the need to retract a comment or apologize for its edge. “My grandchildren call me the inappropriate grandmother,” she says.
While she relaxes outside, tossing a few raspberries to finches, Ayden has been busy filing the rust off his archaeological find. “My great-grandchildren are learning skills that aren’t—this business,” says Christina, thumbing an invisible phone. “He’s learned today what an axe file is. He’s cleaning up his clamp, and then he wants it hung on the wall with the crosscut saw and the rest of the logging equipment from around here. So there you have six generations, fixing up something they’ve found.”
The cottage is itself a kind of reclamation project, or perhaps upcycling would be the better term. The rudimentary abode, comprising roughly 1,300 square feet, took shape in the late 1920s out of wood scavenged from a derelict boat. “There was an old barge on the shore, a big scow they used to bring supplies to the loggers,” says Christina. “They gave my grandfather permission to take it apart. It was done in winter, with the stipulation the rest had to be burnt. So that was the start of the cottage.”
Newland Spreadborough and his wife were still staying in company quarters on the mainland at the time, but their three daughters had reached an age when they were inclined to whoop it up on occasion, so he acquired the nearby island, mostly to get a good night’s sleep. “He built this camp so the girls could come over here and not disturb them, but he also wanted to have a piece of this area that was his own,” says Christina. One room of the cottage was effectively a dance hall, and to this day a working gramophone remains, along with the same hardwood planks upon which the girls (and the young lumberjacks or sailors who served as dance partners) did the Charleston, or whatever moves were in vogue.
Christina cranks up the Victrola and drops the needle on a 78 by Tommy Dorsey and his Orchestra, titled “Take Me Back to My Boots and Saddle.” There’s a gal in Cherokee/And she’s waitin’ there for me, he twangs, above the hiss of old vinyl. Some tunes in the collection were more direct on the subject of romance, or laden with innuendo, at least. “As a kid, I used to go around singing all these risqué songs,” Christina recalls with a laugh.
It was while staying in the Pool that she met her future husband. Christina was 16, and Lawrence Jones, an Ojibwa from Wikwemikong, had arrived to fight a wildfire. “Somebody rolled a rock down the hill,” she explains, pointing to the slope in question, which, like all of Baie Fine’s shoreline, consists of craggy quartzite. “Quartz on quartz can throw a spark.” The hill rises sharply from the water’s edge, just 100 metres or so from the island, so the family had front-row seats for the drama. “He came down from the fire in the evening, I picked him up on the shore, and he came over for a visit. And that was it, we were off to the races.”
Sadly Lawrence predeceased her long ago, dying at 55. “He had his first heart attack at 36,” says Christina, adding with characteristic cheek: “probably from living with me.” He lives on in the kids, though, and their kids, all of who have embraced their First Nations heritage. Christina, meanwhile, kept heading for Baie Fine whenever possible, accompanied or not. Since retiring as a nurse eight years ago and stepping down as a municipal councillor, she’s made it her routine to hunker in for the entire summer.
“I get the water taxi from Birch Island and stay down here for three months,” she says. It’s a repeat of what she did as a youngster, when she would come right after school got out and stay until Labour Day—but she is okay with that arc. “You come into the world peeing your pants, and go out of the world peeing your pants,” she says.
Photo by Peter Baumgarten.
Christina’s cottage interior
The cottage has changed little from its earliest days and is packed with heirlooms.
Photo by Peter Baumgarten.
Christina’s great granddaughter
“My great-grandchildren are learning skills that aren’t—this business,” says Christina, thumbing an invisible phone.
Photo by Peter Baumgarten.
Christina’s logbook
Group of Seven artists A.Y. Jackson and Arthur Lismer signed a logbook the cottager keeps carefully stored in a Seal Line dry bag.
Photo by Peter Baumgarten.
Christianna and her grandchildren
When the grandkids are with them, Christianna (left, in blue shirt), her husband, Peter, and the rest of the family frequently build evening campfires on ‘the Big Rock’ on the east side of the island.
The cottage has changed little from its earliest days and is packed with items from her grandfather’s era: cast-iron pans, deer antlers, enough oil lamps to illuminate a small castle. There’s also a map showing the timber limits her granddad oversaw, and a bureau he built using wooden crates as drawers. Pull one out, and you will see “Carnation Evaporated Milk,” among other brand names for tinned goods, stamped on the side. Coffee percolators abound, one of which has its bulb held in place with string from a potato bag. There is no hydro (unless you count a single solar panel and an ancient generator gathering dust), no landline, and no running water. There is a hand pump, however, and a wood-fired cookstove with removable rings that can bring a pot to boil.
“To fill a tub, you need five full pails of cold and three pails of hot,” says Christina. That’s for an adult, who wants a really good soak. Babies—including June, the youngest great-grandchild, who had followed family tradition by cottaging before she turned one—can be more casually dunked. “The last time we had her down here we bathed her in the cooler,” says June’s grandmother, Christianna.
Christina says she rarely feels anxious while cottaging by herself, although she does carry a cattle prod when making trips to the outhouse at night. Originally, she had a short handle for this zapper, but her kids convinced her to use a longer one. “Their opinion is, why do I want to be that close to the bear?” she says. Luckily she’s never encountered a bruin while bound for the privy, but one did surprise her in bed one night, seemingly to its regret. “About three in the morning, I heard this zzz-ip as he ran his claw, neat as could be, through the copper screen,” she says. The bear proceeded to poke his head through the opening and even placed a paw on her chest. “I sleep in a single bed, so there wasn’t much room for the two of us,” Christina recounts. “I’d heard the tenderest part is their nose, so I…whacked him there. And he just sort of pulled back and left.”
More worrying to her is the presence of porcupines, as a grandson’s dog got “mixed up with one” in the past. “Down in the boathouse I have a big tin can for them,” she says. “I just take a board and whump the porcupine into it, put the lid on, and row it over to the mainland. I don’t want to kill it, but I don’t want it on the island.”
Loneliness isn’t a huge concern, as she enjoys communing with other critters, including the massive snapper who visits daily, and could be as old as the cottage itself. Plus, it’s not as if the Pool—remote as it might look on a map, and secluded as it might feel at times—is a place devoid of human activity. The sheltered anchorage has been a magnet for yachters for well over a hundred years, and canoe-trippers sometimes pass through too.
Christina will often wave or welcome them ashore, as was the case when one group from a summer camp was caught in a downpour, and with insufficient gear. “It was August, and they were hypothermic,” she says. “I brought them in and got them warmed up, fed them, and dressed them in peculiar clothes.” The supply of spare duds was limited, she explains, so one young man ended up tugging on a pink nightgown with a cat on its chest. “He wore it quite happily,” she says. “And for two or three years after that, guiding the kids, he always stopped by to say hello.”
A mainstay for years in the Pool was The Chanticleer, a boat so big it dwarfed the island to which it was tethered. Both the boat and the island, located within view of the Jones cottage, belonged to Ralph Evinrude, of outboard motor fame, who married Hollywood actress Frances Langford. Neither is alive now, but Christina got to know both when she was a kid and would often catch frogs for them to use as fish bait.
Another celebrity was William Hale “Big Bill” Thompson, the portly mayor of Chicago and apparent crony of Al Capone. He had a cottage on Threenarrows Lake, accessed by a steep trail from the Pool, and was reputedly toted over this mountain pass by four men in a modified chair. Christina wasn’t alive to see this happen, but she did see evidence of the portable throne. “The chair was still there, on the side of the hill, when I was a kid,” she says. “It finally fell apart.”
There are stories too of men with violin (a.k.a. gun) cases, as well as Capone himself, passing through Baie Fine, and Big Bill escaping via a different route when he knew the mobster was looking for him. Christina admits these episodes have only been communicated to her through family lore. More verifiable are the visits from Group of Seven artists A.Y. Jackson and Arthur Lismer, not just to the Pool but to the Jones camp itself. Both signed a logbook the cottager keeps carefully stored in a Seal Line dry bag. Lismer, who stayed with Christina’s grandparents in 1933, along with his wife and daughter, contributes a sketch with his entry. It depicts the painter and his family gazing out from the island, below a panel of scenery and wildlife, along with the caption: “If there’s anything else in Baie Finn (sic), we haven’t seen it.”
Photo by Peter Baumgarten.
Christina’s cottage interior
While the cottage is neither big nor fancy, there is much to take in.
Photo by Peter Baumgarten.
The outhouse
The outhouse, of course,
is home to the bedpans.
Photo by Peter Baumgarten.
Christina knitting
Christina has no intention of stopping her summer-long, largely solo visits to the Pool. “I bring in everything that I need with me,” she says. “I’m very content here.”
Today, it’s relatively quiet in the Pool. There are a couple of sailboats but they are anchored around a corner from the Jones place, out of view, and there is no one at the Evinrude cottage. About the only marine traffic is Christianna, who goes for a spin on a stand-up paddleboard, clad in a T-shirt that reads: “It’s camp not cottage.” Later, her husband, Peter, will also go for a paddle with Ayden, gliding around the edge of the bay in a canoe.
Christina says that she welcomed a boater ashore a few days earlier, and gave him a tour of the cottage. While neither big nor fancy—with its rectangular layout and rough-sawn planks, it feels not that far removed from the barge that spawned it—there is much to take in, including a loft that looks like something out of a children’s story and a wall full of faded, hardcover books. Among the titles is Lost In The Backwoods, by Catharine Parr Traill, an old enough edition that the name on the spine reads “Mrs. Traill” and a swastika (not yet synonymous with evil) graces its cover. There’s also a 1934 novel by Caroline Miller about the antebellum south that won a Pulitzer and should be more famous than Gone With The Wind, but never caught on the same way, perhaps because its title—Lamb In His Bosom—confused even readers of the day.
If those tomes didn’t catch the interest of her visitor, there was plenty more he could peruse, including old photos from the 1920s, a pie safe, the saved skins of snakes, wineskins, cowbells, a harpoon gun, and countless representations of owls, sailboats, and loons. “He loved it,” says Christina. “His comment to me was, ‘It’s like a museum.’ ” The cottager, who would rather add another logging artifact to her walls than acquire indoor plumbing, and sees no reason why a 60-year-old canister of Fry’s Cocoa should be tossed, took that as a compliment.
Just as we’re getting used to the idea of having the whole Pool to ourselves, we hear the sound of human voices, joined in song. The source isn’t immediately obvious. The chorus grows louder—but not obnoxiously so—and then a truly odd craft rounds the point, drifting slowly toward us. It’s a perfectly flat rectangle, like a floating carpet, but topped with four chairs. In those chairs are four people, harmonizing with one another. Each seems to have a beverage in their hand, and they are clearly enjoying themselves, while not really annoying anyone else.
“What is it?” says Ayden. “I thought they had rafted two paddleboards together, but I’ve never seen anything like that,” says Christianna. “It looks like an inflatable platform,” says Peter.
Christina just smiles. Then, in a way that both echoes Lismer’s guestbook entry and somehow answers it, proclaims: “You’ve never seen half of what I’ve seen here.”
This article was originally published in the June/July 2022 issue of Cottage Life magazine.
Burrowing your toes into a sandy beach on a hot day feels like a summer ritual. But as it turns out, you don’t have to fly all the way to the Caribbean to enjoy the experience. Ontario’s cottage country has its fair share of sandy beaches.
These cottage rentals all come with private sandy beaches perfect for swimming, suntanning, snorkelling, fishing, and watersports. A couple even have their own beach volleyball courts. If you’re looking for a cottage rental with a sandy beach, these are the getaways for you.
A four-season cottage rental nestled on the sandy shores of Georgian Bay. The property features 90 feet of sandy, weed-free water great for swimming and snorkeling. Plus, it’s only a 90-minute drive from Toronto.
Located just outside of Huntsville, this three-story cottage rental offers a sandy beach that leads down to a dock where you can swim, fish or partake in water sports. There’s even a beach volleyball court if you’re feeling competitive.
Perched on Oxtongue Lake, just 10 minutes from Algonquin Park, this traditional timber frame cottage rental is the perfect summer hangout. Suntan on the sandy shoreline or take the property’s canoe out and explore.
Location: Algonquin Highlands, Ont.
Price: Averages $506 per night
Sleeps: 11
Bedrooms: 4
Notes:
Internet included
Laundry on site
Outdoor fire pit
Canoe and kayak available for use
Pets welcome
Get a discount if you book a stay after October 24
This property boasts a private sandy beach on Deer Lake, only 20 kilometres north of Huntsville. Both the cottage and the beach are wheelchair accessible. Spend your nights sitting around the property’s fire pit, gazing up at the stars while roasting marshmallows.
This cottage rental is a family’s dream. Located in the heart of Muskoka, the property offers a private sandy beach, an outdoor hot tub, a 40-foot dock, and all the boats and water toys you and your kids could ever need.
Located on Clearwater Lake in Muskoka, this cottage rental has a sloping sandy beach with its own volleyball court. The cottage is only open to family rentals but offers a great waterfront for kids to splash around in.
Ontario Provincial Police say there was no safety equipment on board a canoe that capsized in frigid Georgian Bay waters on June 13. Two men from Toronto were in the canoe when it overturned at around 8 a.m.—one of them, a 36-year-old man who has not been named by police, was rescued by a kayaker who was nearby. He was treated for cold water exposure at an area hospital.
It took aerial and marine search and rescue teams 12 hours to find 29-year-old Mateusz Janus. His body was found at 8 p.m. by divers from OPP’s Underwater Search and Rescue Unit after he went missing approximately 300 metres from shore between Cedar Point and Mark’s Point in Tiny Township. An autopsy is being conducted to determine the cause of death.
Photo courtesy of Google Maps
Members of the Beausoleil First Nation Fire Service, the crew of the Beausoleil First Nations’ ferry, Indian Maiden, Tiny Township Fire Service, County of Simcoe Paramedic Service, and a search and rescue Hercules aircraft from 424 Squadron Trenton also assisted in the search for Janus.
Aircraft from @JRCCTrentCCCOS along with the #SGBOPP marine unit are searching for one of two canoists who has gone missing after entering the water along around 8:25am today north of Mark's Point @tinytownship. One canoist was rescued & safe, search continues for the second.^dh pic.twitter.com/dTitWbjaDE
