The Lake Erie Shore. Ron Brown
Port Ryerse
Normandale
St. Williams
Troyer
Port Royal
Clear Creek
Houghton
Port Bruce
Jamestown
Port Talbot
Tyrconnell
Eagle
Port Glasgow
Clearville
Antrim
Shrewsbury
Union and Albertville
Colchester
10
Point Abino
Turkey Point
Long Point
Point aux Pins
Point Pelee
Pelee Island
Notes
Bibliography
Websites
Index
About the Author
No book on local history or heritage could work without the hard work and participation of local heritage enthusiasts. In general, I want to acknowledge the libraries in Leamington and Fort Erie, and the Port Dover Harbour Museum for housing a wonderful store of local material, and for making it available for this book.
A number of individuals went out of their way to provide information and help with travel to this forgotten area. These include Robert Honor, owner of Honor’s Bed and Breakfast in Amherstburg, and coordinator of heritage walks in that historic town; Clark Hoskin, manager of Tourism and Economic Development for Norfolk County; John Cooper of the Lake Erie Management Unit in the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources office in London; Sandra Bradt, director of tourism for the Convention and Visitors Bureau of Windsor, Essex County, and Pelee Island; Karen Cummings, coordinator of Tourism, Development and Marketing for the County of Elgin; Stephen Francom, manager and curator of the Elgin County Archives; and Caralee Grummett of the Fort Erie Economic Development and Tourism Corporation in Fort Erie.
The many local histories and collections in our libraries make the region come alive and provide the small stories as well as the big picture. In this digital age, the Internet is now full of individual contributions to the lore of the local area. These books, articles, and websites are listed at the conclusion of the book. They are a true reflection of an enthusiasm for the heritage of the places of the Lake Erie. For all these individuals Lake Erie is not forgotten.
INTRODUCTION Ontario’s Forgotten South Coast
When you think about it, what exactly is it that makes the Canadian shore of Lake Erie so special? It’s not its physical features, for it lacks the soaring cliffs of the Bruce Peninsula, the white mountains of Lake Huron, or the giant red outcrops of Superior’s magnificent coastline. Nor is there anything like the smooth, sculpted pink shoals that line the Thirty Thousand Islands of Georgian Bay. Rather, it offers a rather dreary coast consisting of a monotonous cliff line punctuated by marshes and long sandy spits that jut far into the lake.
It’s not its developments, for the towns and villages that line it are small and often little-changed over their existence. No CN Towers here, no “Distillery Districts,” Ontario Places, or Gardiner Expressways.
What makes it special are in fact exactly those things — the absence of the grand. Rather, it is a place to explore the past, the ecology, the places — all of which are little known outside of its own sphere.
Here you find the northern reaches of the lush Carolinian forests, plants found nowhere else in Ontario. Here too is one of Ontario’s only three UNESCO World Biosphere Reserves, as well as cactuses, tall grass prairies, and one of Canada’s Heritage rivers. The waters of the lake are among Ontario’s most dangerous, their shallow depths littered with hundreds of doomed ships. It is a lake of unpredictable tidal waves and, some say, its own “monster.”
Its shores harbour a string of active fishing ports, home to the world’s largest freshwater fishing fleet, and indeed the last fishing fleet on the Great Lakes. Picturesque harbours contain fish stores, net sheds, and historic light houses, and in one case, a castle. In other cases, the Erie shore can be a “ghost coast.” Where schooners once set sail with barley or lumber, only rotten cribbing lies, hotels and stores sit empty, mill sites have only their overgrown ponds to tell of busy milling days.
Then there is its human history — fugitive slaves escaping their humiliating servitude, heroines rescuing the crew of a sinking ship, a “witch” doctor, an imperious “emperor” after whom many a place has been named, nefarious rum-runners, and the mysterious, little-known pre-historic inhabitants.
Yet for those who know Erie’s shores, and love them, they are anything but forgotten. But for those who live in Ontario’s sprawling metropoli, or are more used to the traditional cottage country, Erie’s shores are little known. For most of Ontario, Lake Erie is indeed Ontario’s forgotten south coast.
1 THE MAKING OF A LAKE Tidal Waves, Monsters, and Dead Zones
Compared to the millions of millennia