Story of Kinver on Ten Mile Bay

A secluded spot on Ten Mile Bay

Near the top of Ten Mile Bay, John Hiley’s parents purchased two twenty-five acre parcels from the Crown in 1931. At that time, Crown land could be bought for $10 an acre, with patents to the land obtained after a dwelling was built. The first year the Hileys came up from Scarborough, Ontario, they explored the lake, looking at different locations for a cottage. They camped in a few spots, but ultimately settled on a secluded site in Ten Mile Bay, which they named Kinver. The gently-sloping land had been homesteaded some years before, as the new covering of young, fast-growing alders made clear. The previous occupiers had presumably abandoned the land after they found the marshy, sandy conditions impossible to farm. For the Hileys, however, the site was perfect, since it was relatively isolated at the end of a bay with no other cottages or homes in sight. The following year the Hileys invited relatives to visit them. Some slept in the original house, and others in a large army tent, while John’s father built two more cabins. John’s father was a schoolteacher, so the Hileys were able to spend the entire summer at Kinver. Despite the privacy afforded by being the only cottage in the bay, it was still relatively accessible, located right next to the main road between Dwight and Dorset, which was significantly improved during the province’s highway improvement relief program of the 1930s.