{ PROF. R. K. GORDON }

A COTTAGER TELLS THE STORY OF HIS GRANDMOTHER LOOKING FOR AN ISLAND TO BUY IN 1907.

What about that one?” I asked our surveyor, pointing to an island. Slowly we moved around it, a few feet out from the shore, staring with all our eyes for the mark of another surveyor.  

“Yours if you want it,” said the surveyor.

 “I’ll take it,” I said, trying to speak casually as if ordering a pair of boots.

He took a tin of white paint and a brush and on a conspicuous smooth rock painted “L.S.94.” The letters were his own initials, the 94 was the number of the island for the survey. We felt that we were now on the map.

{ EDIE BRUCKLAND }

bert bruckland was the ojibway’s second-in-command for 50 years. his daughter tells of a runaway cow.

They had to have milk on the island. So a cow was brought in by steamer from Meaford. She had newly calved and she wanted to get back to her little calf. They hadn’t tied her up and she decided she’d swim. When they missed her, two, three boats were sent out to look for her. One of the Indian guides and Dad found her. She was on the outer shoals heading straight for Meaford. They lassoed the poor cow and towed her back.

{ IRENE PAWIS }

the granddaughter of james j. pamajewon, an ojibway fishing guide in the 1920s, remembers her island summers.

I would stay with my grandfather, at the back of Ojibway Island. The old bunkhouse used to have
Abe Nogonosh, his family living in one end; Dave Pawis and his family living in the other. The next camp over was my grandfather’s. And then Johnson Pawis, Charlie Nanibush and Jimmy B. Pamajewon. They were all in tents, on platforms. We slept on the floor. We were up on the rocks, and down near the water was our cooking area. There was no propane then; we just had a fire. We made boats, little wooden sailboats, and sailed them along the shore. And we swam all day.

{ RUTH KENNEY }

ruth came from parry sound and in the late 1930s worked as a waitress at the ojibway.

The chef would lose patience with us out in the kitchen and slam things around if he was annoyed with us. He didn’t serve us very nicely. Some of the guests were pretty fussy about their food. They’d send back something like roast beef that wasn’t cooked well enough. And the chef, he would turn it over and put some gravy on it. But it was a good place to work. Oh, it was a wonderful place. And if we made a hundred dollars, with tips and everything, in the summer, that was considered to be fine.

{ JIMMY LONGLADE }

jimmy was 16 years old when he began working as a fishing guide at the ojibway. 

I used to go to the Ojibway in the mornings and wait while all the other guides would be assigned boats. Nothing happened. Bert wouldn’t let me guide. He figured I didn’t know the water and I was too young. But one day, a guest came down from the hotel and all the guides were gone. So I took Mr. Spence to catch bass. At 11:30 we came back with a bass the butcher weighed off at 2¾ pounds. That fish won the cup for the week. Mr. Spence hired me for the month.

{ NORM DYNES }

a bellhop from 1944 to 1946, norm remembers aspects of the ojibway hotel not advertised in its brochures.

There were two of us. We went up to clean the bats out of the attic. One of us would stick a broom up into the roof and dislodge a bat. It would fly back and forth until we could hit it with one of the brooms and put it into a wicker bushel basket. One time, a bat fell into a knot hole in the floor. There was no way we were going to pick it up. So we pushed it through. It fell into a third-floor bedroom on a guest taking a nap.  

{ ROGER WARREN }

ROGER, A COTTAGER, WAS A REGULAR COMPETITOR DURING THE 1950S AND TOOKPART IN THE REGATTA’S TOUGHEST EVENT.

For three years, Bill Prior and I won the tilting. I paddled in the stern and Bill was in the bow – with the pole... bamboo...with a big, soft rubber ball on the end. We didn’t get a trophy, just a little ribbon. It was more for honour. Then we got our comeuppance. Napoleon Longlade and and his son Jimmy took us on and we didn’t stand a chance. They got upwind, outpaddled us and just pushed harder. The bows would hit each other. We had no padding on, just a bathing suit. The matches could be quick or long...either way.