MINDEMOYA––In the bustling Central Manitoulin hub of Mindemoya, there’s much to occupy a visitor—everyday errands in the town’s wide range of shops, restaurants and services can easily be combined with a peek into the past, a cool forest walk and a relaxing break by the lake.
Lake Mindemoya, Manitoulin’s third-largest lake (after Manitou and Kagawong) is the town’s namesake, originating in much earlier times from Ojibwe legends about the large island that dominates the centre of the lake.
Treasure Island, or as it is also known, Mindemoya Island, can be seen from almost all vantage points around the lake. The shape of the island is of a person lying prostrate with hands outstretched in front. One Anishinaabe tale tells of Nanabush, the Trickster with magic powers, who was carrying his grandmother over his shoulder, and suddenly stumbling, caused her to fly through the air to the middle of the lake, landing on her hands and knees, where she has remained ever since. This is Mindemoya (Mndimooyenh), the legendary old woman of the lake.
In 1883, the McPhersons of Toronto bought the island for $60. They sold it in 1928 to Joe and Jean Hodgson who set up a tourist camp called Treasure Island, renowned far and wide from 1903 to 1994. Their daughter, Marion, who married Jack Seabrook, the original owner of Mindemoya’s Brookwood Brae Golf Club, wrote an intimate memoir of the Hodgson saga in ‘One Man’s Journey: George Hodgson 1849-1924’ that can be found at the Welcome Centre downtown.
The Welcome Centre on Highway 551 is staffed during July and August by summer students who help with directions and accommodations and escort visitors around the centre’s historical displays, from fossils to early photographic portraits and family trees of settler families, quilts, dolls and handmade furniture. Orienting oneself to Mindemoya and environs is simple with the ‘Mindemoya Walkabout’ map available here that lists shops and services as well as historical sites of interest. A tour of the Welcome Centre’s adjacent Pioneer Park reveals several outbuildings filled with pioneer tools, farm equipment and domestic implements. One tiny log cabin, built by William and Agnes King in 1867, was donated in 1993 to the Central Manitoulin Historical Society by Jack and Marion Seabrook, who had had it moved first from its original site to their new golf course. They spent four summers in the cabin before bequeathing it to posterity.
Located at the crossroads of Highways 551 and 542, the town of Mindemoya sprang up in the mid-1870s, establishing first a general store then the saw and grist mills, wagon and blacksmith shops, school and churches of the growing community. A thriving dairy industry was founded by A.J. Wagg, whose family operated the business until 1981, when it was sold to the Farquhar family. The stone creamery’s cornerstone is now at the Pioneer Museum; another memento of the Wagg family is the lovely forested parcel of 42 acres called Wagg’s Wood in the heart of the town on Highway 542. Two easy trails among towering maples and birches offer a quiet reminder of the value of communing with nature in our busy lives.
The ultimate booster of all things Mindemoya, Jan McQuay was born and raised here, returning in 2003 after attending Queen’s University and working on environmental issues with Pollution Probe in Toronto. Jan’s father, Dr. Russell Bateman McQuay, lived and worked from the red brick house that still stands on Highway 551 near the centre of town; he traveled in all weather conditions and times of day to answer calls, and, history has it, the doctor also manually turned the streetlights off and on when they were first installed in the 1930s. In the 1970s the family moved to the lakeshore when the new Mindemoya Hospital could house doctors in offices there. This neighbourhood and its lakeside road known as Ketchankookem Trail, where old-time cottages sit side by side with modern builds, is dear to Ms. McQuay’s heart; here Treasure Island seems a stone’s throw away from the government dock and boat launch built by a friend of Joe Hodgson’s, often a visitor at the private island: the leader of the government in the 1960s, Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson.
Having decided to stay on after retirement, Jan McQuay’s love of Mindemoya became her new life’s work: she’s the manager of the town’s Farmers’ Market on Saturday mornings at the J.H. Burt Memorial Arena, coordinating vendors, ads and the flow of activities. At the market, Jan can be found at her potter’s wheel throwing a pot or teaching the skills to visitors while exhibiting her annual ‘Scenic Manitoulin’ calendars filled with her talented photography, produced by her company, McQuay Click and Clay.
Ms McQuay is keen to protect both the built and natural environment of Mindemoya, and is active in community efforts to consult with the municipality on future uses of the Old School building—Jan’s old public school—and of Wagg’s Wood. The Mindemoya Beautification Committee is a project of Jim and Joanne Smith (nee Hodgson) that gets Ms. McQuay’s support for putting the old school bell on prominent display, building the pretty gazebo, planting flowers, laying plaques dedicated to donors of new trees and maintaining the Community Hall and baseball diamond.
“It’s important for retired people to contribute to the community,” says Jan McQuay, a busy member of the legion of volunteers who donate their time to the multiple good causes that make small communities remarkably resilient. “People are more likely to participate here than in cities,” she notes.
“One thing that’s unique about Mindemoya,” explains the Haweater, “is that we have five public picnic areas around the lake, not everywhere is privately owned.” Here are Jan’s favourite spots for finding your bliss around Lake Mindemoya: the small swimming area with bench at the end of Old Hwy 551 at Ketchankookem Trail; picnic and swimming area along Monument Road beside Stanley Park Campground; picnic area along Hwy 542/551 at the south end of Lake Mindemoya; picnic and swimming area at Government Dock on Ketchankookem Trail; picnic area along Hwy 551 north of Hill Road. “Lake Mindemoya is relatively shallow,” says our tour guide, “so it’s great for swimming, especially at these spots.”
Ms. McQuay also enthuses about the availability of “most everything” in Mindemoya: “We have restaurants that are open year round, a fire hall, auto repair garages, clothing and gift shops, hardware stores, the largest grocery store on the Island, churches for Catholic, Anglican, United and Missionary denominations and Community Living Manitoulin with Hope Farm’s assisted living facilities. There are motels, a sports equipment rental store, pet supplies, a bakery and cafe, trails at Wagg’s Wood and Maple Ridge Trails (off the Hope Farm driveway), housing that is geared to income, a library, a curling club, Central Manitoulin Public School and single storey homes for seniors.”
At this point, we’ve reached the old site of Mud Lake just outside town, now drained and grown into marshland. “This was never really a lake, even when I was a kid,” says Jan McQuay as she clambers down the bank, relishing the expanse of tall grasses and big sky above. “Mindemoya,” she smiles, “is home.”
For more on Mindemoya and the municipality of Central Manitoulin (including Providence Bay, Spring Bay, Sandfield and Big Lake): http://www.centralmanitoulin.ca/
Central Manitoulin Welcome Centre, 2207 Hwy. 551, Mindemoya. Tel: 705-377-4383.
Open from 8 am to 8 pm daily during July and August.
For monthly listings of all Island events, pick up a free copy of ‘Manitoulin’s Magazine 2017,’ available everywhere. Events updates can be found weekly in The Manitoulin Expositor and the Manitoulin West Recorder.
