To the Expositor:
This past week (August 1-8) my wife, mother-in-law, and myself had the pleasure of visiting Manitoulin Island. We are long time visitors to the Island. In fact, my mother-in-law has been visiting since the early 1950s.
This year we stayed at a group of cottages overlooking Picnic Island and Low Island Park. When we arrived on Saturday we were impressed with the cottage and its view of the North Channel. We did not notice the tents down by what they call “the beach.”
Later on Saturday evening we were greeted with loud music and yelling from the general direction of the tents. This went on until one or two o’clock Sunday morning. Upon discussing this with one of the other visitors to these cottages, we found out that the originators of this noise were in fact friends and family of the cottage resort owners and have been camping here on Haweaters weekend for 10 years.
Sunday night we wanted the go to the fireworks and parade of boats, but were just too tired from being kept up the night before so we had to miss it! This was one of the main reasons we came to the Island in the first place. After the fireworks were over, the ‘beach guests’ returned and continued with the music and yelling again until one or two o’clock Monday morning! Later in the morning they all packed up and left.
Monday afternoon and evening was very quiet and peaceful and enjoyed very much!
Tuesday morning we awoke to a noise I can only compare to fingernails being scratched on a black board. When we looked out of our window a big construction shovel started working on a foundation right beside our cottage! I couldn’t believe it! We had this inconvenience for three days! We wanted just to relax on the deck and enjoy the scenery, but instead had to retreat to the truck and leave the premises. In a way this was good because we explored parts of the Island we had never seen before, but I think the decision to explore should have been ours.
Thursday afternoon Country fest started. This was not a surprise, but we didn’t realize that the stage was going to be only 1,000 feet from our cottage. Surprisingly, the music from this event didn’t bother us that much as the volume was not too intense.
We do wish that the owners of this cottage resort would have informed us about the construction before we arrived on the Island so that we could have made alternate arrangements. We also think that the party on the ‘beach’ should have been better policed instead of letting it escalate to the detriment of other cottage guests. We all could have had a good time then.
Like I said at the beginning, we are long time Manitoulin visitors and this is the first time we’ve had a dissatisfactory stay. We will come back, but not to this particular resort.
Thank you,
Ron and Diane Zinger
Guelph
