E.R.A. Architects Inc.

Scott Weir

September 1, 2007 — National Post

Magic at Pointe au Baril – From 19th-century social hub to restored resort, the Ojibway Club stands the test of time.

Highway 644 is not the mightiest of the Queen’s highways. At 800 metres, it’s more of a glorified driveway, a short stumble from the LCBO on High-way 69 to the government wharf in Pointe au Baril Station. And looking in the direction of open water from Kennedy’s Hardware Store will convey only a taste of the magic that is Pointe au Baril.
But at the centre of this place, far from the land of cars, is the Ojibway Club, a century-old architectural beauty and social heart of an island archipelago 10 minutes out into Georgian Bay. Built in the form of a rambling shingle-style hotel, the Ojibway’s main building is a rare survivor, a direct descendant of the great East Coast summer resorts of the late 19th century. Its asymmetrical bulk sprawls across its island’s brow, tower, dormers and wings bound together by an undulating surface of cedar shingles and a broad verandah. Overlaid on this architecture are reminders that one is in the wilderness — columns of rough bark-clad logs, stair balustrades of birch branches and fireplaces of smooth rounded boulders.
Many of the old cottaging families at Pointe au Baril can trace their origins here to a predecessor who once stayed at the Ojibway and fell inextricably in love. That person would have been astounded by the sheltered channels at the edge of Georgian Bay’s pounding waves, have soaked in the sun-baked granite against his back with feet dangling in icy clear water, and left craving the taste of August blueberries. Even if American, he might have felt deeply and passionately Canadian, that the ache in his canoe-paddling shoulders justified his position in this strangely compelling landscape.
The rustic Adirondack architecture of this place seems appropriate to this wave of northernist patriotism. Hotels like this one were often future cottagers’ first point of access to what has become cottage country. A boom in wilderness recreation emerged in the 19th century to serve a populace desperate to escape the ravages of coal-fired pollution and rampant disease of the urban summer.
By the late 1800s, rail and steamship lines had penetrated deep into Muskoka and Georgian Bay, allowing for the rise of such luxurious social hubs as Windermere House, one of the 107 hotels listed as operating in the district in 1910. When the fabulous Big-win Inn on Lake of Bays opened in the 1920s, it was the largest resort in the British Empire, capable of serving 500 guests. Two months of the year these hotels served a clientele from upstate New York, Ohio, Michigan and Ontario.
The current crop of Pointe au Barilers is an interesting meld of history. Still here are descendants of the Native Canadians, fishermen and loggers who knew the details of the waterways long before the maps were drawn. Alongside them are long-standing cottaging families, embodying a cross-pollination of the Branksome Hall volleyball team and the Upper Canada College Debating Society, scions of their empires of bread, chicken and shoes. The overlay is friendly, and what privilege may exist is not thrust upon a visitor with the Hummer-happy aggression that can be evident in Muskoka, regattas superceded by conspicuous consumption as the summer’s most anxiously anticipated spectator sport.
Because in many cases the Ojibway was here first, it has served as the base of many long-standing friendships. When the hotel closed in the 1960s, the Pointe au Baril Islanders’ Association bought it, continuing its role as the source for groceries, mail, ice cream, gossip and the testing of new spousal prospects. (These cottagers incur little stress, but one source can occur when possible future mates are brought to the Bay to test their long-term suitability. The world falls into two camps: those who love Georgian Bay, and those who count the seconds until they can leave. Obviously, if a suitor falls into the latter category, they are deemed unsuitable and politely dismissed, since the relationship could never possibly last).
Strangely, there is also almost an inverse of real estate values found elsewhere in cottage country. “Drive to” cottages in this region are often far from open water, and can sell near the bottom of the bracket after having sat on the market for months. But barren, treeless islands at the edge, with little more than wooden shacks perched on slabs of rock pounded by waves, teetering on the edge of the abyss, are highly coveted, and are snapped up before they even enter the market.
By the end of the 1990s, when the 19 Ojibway Hotel buildings, guest cottages, stores, post office and its tennis courts had survived intact but battered, the mossy upper floors of the hotel structure long abandoned to the bats and raccoons, the club’s board of directors began a fundraising effort. They sought both private and public money to stabilize and restore the 19 buildings, and the evidence of their efforts is thorough and impressive. Their well-researched book, At the Ojibway, is rich with archival images of the place’s century of architecture and social life. From the reconstruction of the log belvedere to the new sprinkler system that can deluge the roof in case of forest fire, the work of these volunteers has proven them good stewards of a rare surviving element of Ontario’s recreational history.
In a land where winter seems to last half the year, with water variably solid or liquid at any one point in time, the islands of Pointe au Baril tend to have all but the hardiest visitors replaced by contractors by the end of September. This weekend signals the crossover point, when evening cocktails on the dock will be quickly replaced by early morning powertools and sawdust. In this time of intensive development, next summer’s cottage country landscape may look vastly different than this last one did, with the likely exception of Pointe au Baril, where change happens very slowly.