Canada, the Spellbinder

by Lilian Whiting

But when she meets solid land how is she to negotiate the portage? It is then that the genius of the lamp appears, which one has but to rub in order to attain to the realisation of any of his earthly desires, and the touch on the lamp, as Aladdin holds it up for the passengers, produces, not the Amazon nor yet the Mississippi, but a mile of railroad, the shortest railroad in the world, bridging the portage between the lakes. Into the cars throng the passengers for the swift transit around the hills to the lake and the other steamer waiting. "Lake-of-Bays," indeed! Lake of a myriad bays, for the entire shores are indented with the inlets bordered by firs that mirror themselves in the water. It is through all this shining pathway that the tourist makes his triumphal progress and arrives at length at Norway Point. When one realises that all this Wonderland is, after all, only nine hours from Buffalo, one sees how easily accessible from the States are Canada's most charming summer districts. The romantic journey would almost be worth the taking even if one remained but a single night. For the beautiful hours of life are not over when they have passed; they linger in memory; they pervade all the quality of life.

It is in the climate that the very concentration of vitality lies, and a night's sleep at Norway Point seems to transform one's entire being with a renewal of life. What a view it is at night from the upper piazza when the powerful searchlight of the hotel is turned over lakes and woods and clustered islands; and the evening steamer coming in, gay with flags and pennons, with snatches of music and light laughter borne on the evening air. The searchlight on the hotel, the lights on the boat, flash their signals back and forth. For a moment the visitor is again on the Swiss lakes where boats and inns call to each other in signals of light. For some years past the custom, familiar to the sojourners in Geneva, Lucerne, and Vevey, has been adopted as one of the novel and amusing features at the Wawa. Of all the fair lands ever dreamed, is that which is revealed (or is it half created?) under the swiftly moving wave of light, that flashes its high illumination over the lakes, near and far, that gleam like silver. The searchlight brings out the forests in their dark and massive shadows, revealing, too, the numbers of little boats and canoes, with their firefly lights, dotting the lake.

Behind the hotel there rises a densely wooded bluff, some two hundred feet high, from whose summit alluring views attract the lingerer on the hillside. On this height is the reservoir that supplies the hotel, the altitude giving great momentum to the running water. The grounds comprise some three hundred acres—everything is on a generous scale in Canada—and over these grounds are scattered pergolas and rustic seats that offer their enticing ease to the strollers in the open air, who perhaps agree with Walt Whitman that it is in open space in which "all heroic deeds are conceived, and all great poems, also."

It is not surprising that hotels and cottages spring up around these lakes, and that campers find here a favourite haunt. An immense new hotel, the Bigwin Inn, has been completed on Bigwin Island, the enterprise of one of the foremost citizens of Ontario. The Bigwin is something novel in design, the dining-hall occupying one building (with entrancing piazzas and balconies towards the lake) while other buildings house the private rooms for the guests, the Social Hall, Office, and dancing pavilion, though all these are connected by covered corridors. The Bigwin will be one of the greatest summer hotels on the continent, and its establishment is one of the evidences of the increasing popular recognition of the charm and beauty of the Lake-of-Bays country. The hotel is picturesquely situated on Bigwin Island, a tract of two-and-a-half miles in length, densely wooded, and with easy approach. The swift communication rendered possible between The Bigwin and The Wawa, by means of motor boats and steam launches, will enhance the enjoyment of each. The new hotel will be a temple of festivities and gaiety. The dancing pavilion has every late luxury of device for the dancers, and for those interludes of "sitting out" a dance for which the revel itself is made. There are palm corners; there are balconies overhanging the waters until one might well believe himself in Venice; and there are supper rooms, card tables, and provision for necessary music as well as for the onlookers.

The steamers of the Lake-of-Bays Navigation Company will make the Bigwin one of their ports of call, thus assuring a triple service every day, and rendering easy all arrivals and departures. The steamer-landing is near the hotel, and the entire island furnishes the grounds for the Inn. The pretty Italian custom of building the dining-rooms of the hotel so as to overhang the water is one of the noteworthy features of the Bigwin. At Bertolini's, in Naples, a similar effect is attained by the glass-enclosed terrace, in the air, so much in use for afternoon teas and festive occasions. At the Bigwin the salle-a-manger actually projects by some feet above the water, and its circular form and artistic architectural design render it a unique spectacle from the decks of the steamers as they traverse the lake. The Inn, which will open at the end of the War, will accommodate six hundred guests.

The evolution of summer resorts would alone make up almost a social history of the past three-quarters of a century. It is a far cry to the days when, in the United States, Saratoga and Niagara Falls, with a small contingent at Newport, held the exclusive fashionable prestige for summer life. New England had its North Shore, to which Boston largely transferred itself when the summer opened. The White Mountains have always retained their clientele composed for the most part of people to whom the seclusion and pure air ministered rather to the carrying on of their studious pursuits than to the abandonment of them. Newport came to have a formidable rival in Bar Harbour. The opening of luxurious railway facilities to the Far West, and the provision of beautiful hotels in Colorado, at the Grand Canyon, in California, the Yellowstone Park, and other localities have made all those regions a land of summer. There are few, now, that are not familiar to the travelling public, and so the unparalleled summer resorts of Canada open a new range of attractions and experiences.

Apart from the two dominating hotels, the Wawa and the Bigwin, the Lake-of-Bays offers numerous other centres for vacation days in smaller hotels, cottages, and camps. Grunwald, perched on the west shore of Lake Mary; Dwight Bay, Point Ideal, Bona Vista, Britannia, and many other inviting nooks are discovered.

And when the season at enchanting Wawa is over? Then, again, the sail through Peninsula Lake, through Fairy River and Fairy Lake, to the wharf at Huntsville again, where the train awaits the traveller. Alas! for the perfection of connections. One has no excuse for lingering longer. Yet so early in the September days, to many sojourners the best of the season is yet to come. North of the Lake-of-Bays is Algonquin Park. This government reservation of nearly two million acres, with the comfortable and commodious Highland Inn perched on a high terrace looking out on another of the great lakes over the islands and dense woodlands, is to many visitors the most alluring place for out-of-door life in the whole of Canada. The Highland Inn offers much that is not set down on the bills. To find in this sportsman's paradise hotel accommodations that satisfy the typical demands of twentieth-century civilisation; to find homelike rooms, with books and papers and magazines in plentiful profusion; with a writing-desk well stocked with stationery near one's elbow at every turn; spacious piazzas on which to dream; an hotel under the same management as the palatial Château Laurier, the magnificent Fort Garry in Winnipeg, and the hardly less imposing Macdonald in Edmonton—to find these things is to be at once assured of the perfection of every detail. The traveller, only too ready to take the goods the gods provide, accepts this felicitous dispensation as a part of the boundless benevolences of the universe. If he is a sportsman, the world is indeed at his feet. He may secure his canoe and his guide and fish all day in any one of the many lakes; as there are two thousand in all, he may be said to have a range of choice. In the life-giving air, two thousand feet above sea level, he may enjoy indefinitely long tramps, studying, at close range, the wild animals in the Park. For more than twenty years they have been protected from harm by the law that forbids carrying firearms within the reservation limits; and the mink, the beaver, an almost innumerable variety of birds, with squirrels and the graceful and friendly deer are found in abundance in Algonquin Park. The camp sites are unsurpassed and the hospitalities of the campers are as ready as they are ample. The gypsy kettle is always swung, the camp fire is burning, and the lovely nymphs of the lake and woodland who flit about in picturesque garb are ready to offer the impromptu guest almost any order of refreshment at a moment's notice.

The true camper, like the poet, is born and not made. It is an instinct, a gift, a grace, to adapt oneself to the simple life of the woodlands, which is, however, not without its creature comforts. Lady campers may invite one, with traces of housewifely pride, to glance at the interior of their spotless tents; an interior little used save for sleep or for shelter in sudden storms. They take pride in the beds of springy balsam well covered by blankets; and the little tables with a few books and a chair or two. A bed of balsam boughs; a breakfast of trout freshly caught in the lake, with coffee made over the camp fire, combined with youth and health and keen interest in the world in general, and what more could one ask? And if one is not acclimated to the system of domestic life as ordered by the livers in the open air, then he may enjoy in the Highland Inn all the regulation viands and appointments of the highest civilisation, with his breakfast of grape-fruit, cereals, delicious coffee not made over a camp fire; trout, hot cakes, and the wonderful maple syrup of the land of the Maple Leaf. With these he will have his matutinal paper, with the latest news of the universe, that has come up from Toronto at night, and for the day before him relays of attractions, each more delightful than the other, beckon to him.