Resort Days A Memoir

By Ray Love

Resort Days is a story of coming of age at a Muskoka, Ontario, Canada summer resort. It follows the exploits of the author, Ray Love, as he navigates a series of summer jobs at his family's resort. With eight hundred acres of forest and over a mile of shoreline on

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ray Love author
• Release date: Mar 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9784304478697

Book preview

Resort

Days

A Memoir

Ray Love

This book is dedicated to my parents Dan and Phyllis. Thanks for the great ride. Together may you rest well in peace.

I have the choice of being constantly active and happy or introspectively passive and sad or I can go mad by ricocheting in between. Sylvia Plath

Contents

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Epilogue

Acknowledgments

1

I was blessed to live the first two decades of my life in Muskoka, Ontario, Canada, and to have the benefit of all that a family-run summer resort has to offer.  The resort was named Elgin House after the birthplace of my great-grandmother in Elgin County, Southern Ontario. The summer hotel was a two-hour drive directly north of Toronto.

Imagine having 800 acres of forest and over 2000 feet of waterfront as your playground. Throw in a golf course, tennis courts, a wide choice of summer jobs, and excellent resort-quality meals, and you have a dream childhood. A fairy tale of existence. This good fortune did, however, come at a cost.

The property, purchased by my grandfather Lambert in 1885 and expanded over time, was substantial. It was located on one of the three Muskoka Lakes, Lake Joseph, and close to the cut dredged between Lakes Joseph and Rosseau. This part of Ontario became one of the first resort and cottage areas in the province due to its natural beauty and proximity to Ontario’s largest city, Toronto. My great-grandfather, Lambert Love, used his considerable energy and business acumen to build one of the largest summer resorts in Muskoka. It was in existence for approximately ninety years, from 1901 to 1991. I have documented the history of the resort in a previous book Elgin House, Lake Joseph Past and Present.

The shoreline of Lambert’s property extended from the bottom of Cox Bay up the western shore of Lake Joseph for three kilometers before terminating at the Gray’s, a historical cottage property. It originally included Helen Island, which had been bridged to form a small peninsula. The swing bridge at Port Sandfield faced due east and could easily be seen from the Elgin House docks. Directly across from the hotel to the south was another Love resort, the Glen Home. Patrolling the waters between the resorts was a school of large lake trout. They enjoyed the deep, cold waters of the lake. The original Elgin House property formed the shape of a boot giving a gentle easterly kick to Lake Joe.  Possessing a good deal of energy and a great deal of curiosity, I set about exploring my childhood playground.

F:\Elgin House\High Res Photos\Map 1925.tifF:\Elgin House\High Res Photos\Topo Map.tif

Elgin House Property

(The peninsula from Cox Bay through the name Orgills Point)

Over the years, some of the waterfront properties were sold to interested cottagers, monies from which went to hotel expansion and upkeep. This was the norm as patrons of Ontario resorts often inquired about and purchased land for cottages near their favorite resort. About a dozen of the shoreline properties contained hotel cottages rented out during the summer months. There was also a large forested area leading back to Hemlock Point Road, which was logged on occasion and used for a maple bush in the spring.

The shoreline was, in places, steep and rocky and, in others, flat and sandy. There was a sand beach at the bottom of Cox Bay and another next to Helen Island, which became the official hotel beach. There were several swampy shoreline spots typical of lakes in Muskoka.

Most of the inland property could best be described as rolling hills with the odd rocky outcrop. The rock was pure Precambrian Shield granite which alternated between being unsightly and striking. When the blueish-white ice of winter scraped away the mosses and lichen, an intricate mix of black, white, and pink crystals in banded form could be seen. The original farm settlers did not take to it much, while more recently, cottagers and visitors have come to see its magnificence.

Straggly white pine and sturdy maple trees, with fiery wings in autumn, filled in the hills. Closer to water, on flatter terrain, was a mix of birch and cedar. In between were shrubs like sumac with its dull red blossoms and junipers with deep blue berries clinging to rock faces.

The forest around the resort was not by any stretch first growth as there was a shingle and sawmill on site that used up all of the good species of wood. When my great-grandfather bought the property, he cleared some of the lands for a farm on which he raised cattle and sheep. This land eventually became a golf course.

2

The Love family history was complicated and more than a bit unusual. Originally from Richmond Hill, Ontario, my great-grandfather Lambert moved to Gravenhurst in 1875. He was chasing business success brought about by the arrival of the Northern Railway and a boom in sawmilling in Gravenhurst. Through hard work and business smarts, Lambert was able to rise above his birthright. His family had been farmers, and he, not being the eldest son, was not about to inherit the family farm. He thus apprenticed as a blacksmith and brought the trade with him to Gravenhurst. He ran a smithy for ten years and then seized an opportunity to buy a shingle and sawmill on Lake Joseph in 1885. That same year he and his wife, Maggie, had their only son, Bert.

Lambert dabbled in real estate around Lakes Rosseau and Joe and made money to supplement his income from sawmilling. He was known to drive a hard bargain that did not sit well with some local community members. One fellow resort owner said, If Lambert Love goes to heaven, I do not want to go there. When tourists began to show up in Muskoka in earnest, he milled enough lumber to build a small hotel and became a resort owner. The small hotel quadrupled in size in the first decade of the twentieth century, and he became a wealthy man.

Lambert was a teetotaler, a member of the local Temperance League. He did not allow guests at the hotel the privilege of drinking, smoking, or playing cards. He once saw a female guest approach the swimming beach with an outfit he believed to be too risqué for his establishment. He broke a stick off a nearby tree and chased her back to her room, demanding she change into something more appropriate.

He worked hard physically and drew the admiration of a local newspaper reporter for his fine physical fitness at the age of 70. He sired two sons at age 72 and 74 and decided to take his second family across Lake Joseph and build a new hotel, the Glen Home, at age 80. Previously he had sold the Elgin House to his son Bert who was waiting in the wings for decades before seizing the opportunity.

My grandfather Bert and his wife Mabel had five boys, my dad being the youngest. My dad’s mother passed away in childbirth, which was not uncommon at the time. He was a premature baby and took ages to develop. The story goes that he was able to count before he could walk.

My grandfather did not feel capable of raising him, so he asked for help from his step-sister, Bessie Carr, who lived across the bay in Port Sandfield. In the act of paying forward kindness, Bessie, who had been adopted by Lambert and Maggie at a young age, was more than willing to take my dad into