Wilf and Lulubell’s new venture became a family concern; my mother was the property manager and my father came up on weekends. I spent every summer from age three to 11 at Lake of Bays Lodge – wonderful times to remember. I was too young for any real responsibilities other than keeping the overly protective German shepherd dog, Guy, from attacking the bread delivery man, who Guy absolutely hated. On one memorable occasion, the baker, Mr. Black, was charged at by Guy, who escaped from the bedroom where I had locked him. With nothing to defend himself save the huge basket of bread loaves he was carrying, Mr. Black resorted to flinging loaves at the angry dog, emptying his entire basket. My grandfather was not pleased at having to pay for a lot of ruined bread.

I also learned to drive my grandfather’s Ford pickup truck on the weekly runs to Bracebridge for grocery supplies. Although I was barely big enough to reach the pedals, grandfather let me drive on those twisty and hilly country roads, right to the edge of town. Then we switched seats.

Lake of Bays Lodge was a popular place, particularly after the war. Renovations to the lodge took place over the years, turning a portion of the verandah into a large, dining room with picture windows overlooking the water. The construction was undertaken by Jack Brown of Browns Brae who was to become a long-time friend and invaluable helper to our family, even moving with us years later to my father’s hotel on Lake Rosseau. The new dining room can be seen below in the hotel brochure of the day, bottom left.

The right side of the lodge housed the pine panelled lounge with its beautiful stone fireplace seen above on the right and adjacent to that was the card room.

Other construction projects undertaken after WWII were the conversion of the ice house into staff quarters and a laundry. Right up until 1947/8 the hotel kitchen refrigeration was by ice, carefully carved out of the lake in winter and stored in the ice house under a blanket of sawdust. Electric refrigeration was a much-appreciated upgrade in the late 40s. Other improvements included a new staff cottage for the waitresses.

My grandparents prided themselves on serving plentiful and delicious food at the lodge and the original chef was Lu Hi Su. His culinary skills were superb but his temper could result in him chasing a waitress out of the kitchen with a meat cleaver. His replacement was Jack Jung, an equally skilled chef with a much milder personality.

The land on which the hotel was situated was a hilly plateau leading up to another plateau behind the building. Along a path from the hotel to Browns Brae were “Indian pot holes” as we called them – holes in rocks that looked like a pot, which were said to have been used for cooking by Indigenous people of times past. The whole area was covered with raspberry, blackberry and blueberry bushes which made for wonderful summer pies.

The brochure of the day explained how to get to Lake of Bays Lodge and offered one option of travelling by train to Huntsville and then taking the Steamboat “Algonquin” to North Portage on Peninsula Lake where a small railway train would take you through the forest to South Portage on Lake of Bays. Here you would transfer to the steamer “Iroquois” for the final leg to the Glenmount dock. Quite an adventure on its own.

There were plenty of activities for guests at Lake of Bays Lodge. Fishing was a major pastime. My grandparents had great success but the master fisherman was an American guest by the name of Mr. Ski. He came every summer for an entire month and every afternoon he would return to the hotel with his catch, which often ended up on the menu.

There were badminton and shuffleboard courts, a sailboat and a beach for swimming. There was horseback riding at the Bigwin Inn stables nearby at Norway Point. Lake cruises from Port Cunnington were also available courtesy of Mr. Boothby’s beautiful launch.

In 1949 my father and a partner purchased Kawandag, the former Eaton family property on Lake Rosseau, to operate a summer resort. In 1951, Wilf and Lulubell sold Lake of Bays Lodge to Frank Leslie, who already owned Glenmount Hotel and Bigwin Inn. From then on, our family’s summer life was focused around Lake Rosseau.

I have only returned a few times to Lake of Bays. In 1963, a summer job took me to Bigwin Inn. While there I spotted an old Ford pickup being used to haul things around the island. Sure enough, closer inspection revealed faded but still visible letters on its side: “Lake of Bays Lodge.” This was the truck I learned to drive on, on my illicit runs to Bracebridge with my grandfather.

Thirty years later, in 1993, I returned to the lodge property and poked around, looking for signs of what was. The years had covered over or changed almost everything. The one piece of evidence was the concrete pad that my grandfather poured for the shuffleboard court some 50 years earlier. Like summer itself, Lake of Bays Lodge couldn’t last forever, but the happy memories will never leave me.

By Brad Brown