Early Development of Dwight

It was the hotels that gave the community its character

In the early 1870s, Edmund James Gouldie arrived at the north end of Lake of Bays as a trapper and quickly established a relationship with Harvey Prentiss Dwight (from whom the village took its name) and Erastus Wiman who had started a hunting and fishing club, called the Dwight-Wiman Club. Edmund’s brother Archie soon followed his brother to the area, and in 1882 built a hotel called Gouldie House, which catered to the club’s needs. Gouldie House remained small until after the turn of the century when it could accommodate about seventy-five people. Although Dwight featured a church, post office, school and general store by 1900, it was the hotels that gave the community its character. Around 1900, Dr. Pauline Morton and her sister Margaret, moved to Dwight from Rochester, New York, and built Nor Loch Lodge to cater to the convalescent needs of guests, most of whom were women or the elderly. Less than ten years later, Pine Grove Inn (1906) and Logging Chain Lodge (1909) were also built in Dwight. Gouldie House saw the start of tourism in Dwight, but Pine Grove Inn was its heart. Harry Corbett and his wife Helen turned their home into a six-bedroom boarding house, and over the years renovated it into a three-storey resort capable of accommodating 100 guests. In addition to the many guests that stayed at the hotel, the Corbetts also prepared meals for most of the families who had cottages along the beach.