Lay of the Land

In my recent correspondences with Ruth at the Camp, we have been discussing the layout of the buildings and numbering systems.  Out of this discussion grew the question I ask on nearly a daily basis and for which I continue to seek an answer.  Why?  Why would anyone build such a camp on such a remote island?  The island is 35 acres, though mostly unbuildable Canadian Shield granite covered with thick moss that anchors the mixed forest of pine, aspen, bambigalia and other evergreen and deciduous trees.  The Camp sits on about five to seven acres that are low enough to be accessible and have enough soil to hold buildings and a septic field. 

The question I think I can start to answer is 'How was the camp built?  Which building was built first?'

I'm going to begin on the north side of the island.  Today the south side of the island in the 'front door' of the camp, but instinct says this was not always the case and the evidence seems to support this. 

The Chalet was a large log cabin that stood on a high rocky bluff, the high point of the camp parcel on the water, at the northwest corner of the camp.  This high point offered spectaular views across the mouth of Gohere Bay to Wolf Island or the mainland where bear and moose fed along a steep embankment and otters are still seen sliding down muddy spots along the bank.  The Chalet was often referred to as the original lodge building with a large central room featuring a stone fireplace and lofty ceiling.  Off the northeast and northwest corners were small bedrooms, each a few steps down.  One was later converted to a kitchenette.  A large screened porch along the western end of the building looked over the bay and was probably a great place to catch the sun sinking over the northwoods.

I do not, however, think of the Chalet as the oldest building, or even the oldest cabin.  For that, I believe, is what I knew as cabin 7.  This cabin sits at the crest of the hill overlooking the cove on the north side of the island.  I would say this was the original face of the camp as the glacial cut gives deep water right off the shoreline.  Legend tells of steamboats visiting the camp that would have needed plenty of water for their deep draft.  The cabin featured multiple rooms, a screened porch and stone fireplace. 

The current front door of the camp was most likely built later as the southern shoreline in front of the store is a shallow glacial drag.  The current pier is more than 90 feet long out of necessity.  The area that is currently decked was previously the site of a stone retaining wall, built in the 1960's to cure the mudpit that formed every spring and threatened to take the old store building into the lake.  The retaining wall allowed the addition to be built onto the old store building that made that building into the owner's cabin.  The icehouse beside the lodge building then became the store and office and the icehouse at the north side of the island, across the cove, fell into ruin.

I would say the real log cabins were built next, far enough apart to give them each a sense of isolation.  Cabin two and three atop a bluff looking south over Gohere Bay at twin islands further down the bay.  I would say the last of these is what I knew as cabin 6 at the south east corner of the island sitting beside a tiny cove on a rocky point.  This appears to be the most refined and largest of the log cabins aside from the Chalet. 

This is just conjecture of course.  Wouldn't it be great to find some great narrative from the time the camp was built in the 1920's to answer all the questions?  Was it a loggin camp or always for tourists, hunters and fisherman?  Why that island?  Why so big?  Splitrock Lodge appears to be a contemporary but is only a few buildings and is at a narrows on the main channel.  Green's was built on the mainland as a two-story, perhaps even as a hotel.  Helliar's, built when the bridge went through in the 1930's, has more of an autocamp feel next to Nestor Falls.

Today, all we can do is look and try to imagine the thoughts of the builders who first carved a settlement from the forest and laid the groundwork for the Camp we know today and be thankful for our time on Gohere Bay.