This article originally appeared in slightly edited form in my cottage newsletter the “Big Cedar News”. A small weekly for residents of Big Cedar Point on Lake Simcoe.
It’s time to wrap up this story, and the summer! Both are likely to be a bit of a letdown really.
When we were last together, we had gone all the way (as far as a WaveRunner is concerned) up the east branch of the Holland River. For our last outing we will go up the west branch. Plus, see what’s on the west shore of the bay on our way home.
There’s not that much to say about the west branch really. The first “interesting” thing you’ll encounter is some kind of “trailer park”. But this place is like the trailer park of trailer parks. They have huge signs reminding you to slow down IT’S THE LAW. Even though it’s not. Not here anyway. Just a few dozen meters up the river from this is what I’m pretty sure used to be a marina. It’s now a dock where there were lots of Asian people fishing. Just for the record, that’s not meant to be derogatory in any way, it just happens to be true. I pulled over to ask what the story was. Turns out it’s a “fishing club” (there are lots of air quotes when you’re talking about the places in Keswick/Bradford/etc.). It’s called FisHaven. It seems you can buy a membership to fish there. There’s also some vague association with the Catholic Church. So, it’s like the Loretto Maryholme Retreat we saw in part one, except in every way. Everyone was very friendly.
Sorry the pictures aren’t great, but I didn’t want to drive right up and photograph people. Especially the “trailer park” (quotes again) people, they seemed like they might be armed.
From here there’s not a lot to talk about until you get to the end. There are a few interesting domes in the distance, I’m guessing they’re part of a water treatment plant of some kind.
There is a marina here, the Sun Simcoe Marina. A few years ago, when I bought the very WaveRunner that’s carrying us along, this is where I test drove it. The whole place is run by one old Asian lady (again, that just happens to be the case) and is kind of slowly rotting into the ground. You can at least launch your boat for criminally high prices though.
There’s some kind of bizarre barge here that has perhaps the most charitable name I’ve ever seen on a boat. The “Island Princess” out of Collingwood. This boat is a princess the same way that some crazy old lady’s pug dog with severe nasal issues that’s named “Princess” is a Princess. Once more we are treated to the usual compliment of boathouses and “houses” houses that are rotting into the ground (I mean really, these quotation marks are getting out of control). And once more we are forced to wonder who owns these things and why.
The large road/rail bridge across the river is the end of the line for the WaveRunner. It would fit underneath, but it’s proper swamp on the other side, the rest is only navigable by canoe.
That’s it for the river. Let’s go home. But we’ll have one or two stops on the way. As you return along the western shore of the bay, you’ll encounter a small marina that not many people know is there. Cooks Bay Marina is honestly not a bad little marina. There was some kind of party happening near the entrance. Guess the ethnicity of the people at the party.
Wrong! They were middle eastern. Canada is diverse you racist.
Up next is Kon-Tiki Marina. Which has two of my favourite places on the lake right now. The Jean and Joy Café, which has great coffee and some neat local produce, and the Gilford Local Eatery, which has a bottle shop of weird wines and a menu of great sandwiches. The eatery is open in the summer for cars and boats, and in the winter for cars and snowmobiles, being closed in the shoulder seasons.
The marina is on a small “river” (sorry I can’t resist) that continues under a road bridge, with what appears to be a Beer Store? I can’t figure out what’s going on here, it seems to be someone’s boathouse with a Beer Store sign? But it had opening hours posted in the window… if anyone knows what this is let me know.
We’re almost home. One more stop. Degrassi Point, in my opinion, marks the end of the bottom of Cooks Bay in the west, the same way that Roches Point (do you remember how to pronounce it?) does in the east. There are a few interesting cottages here. Perhaps the last few “cottagey” cottages left on the lake.
I really like Degrassi Point for the fact that they’ve kept it this way, most of the homes look to be frozen in time from when Lake Simcoe was still genuine cottage country. Not all, at least one “modern” build has crept in, but it’s a nice little time capsule. I think they have an association like ours, but much more involved, including owning lake front property and maintaining nothing but woods behind the homes.
So that’s it, that’s the bottom of Cooks Bay. If anyone has genuinely read all these silly articles thank you very much for joining me, it means a lot.
See you next summer.
-Ted Jr.
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