MUSKOKA LIVING The Many Lives of Bigwin Island

The Many Lives of Bigwin Island

BY MATT DRISCOLL PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF MUSKOKA DIGITAL ARCHIVES

Bigwin Island is one of the country’s premier waterfront golf course communities. The history of this stunning island is a microcosm of the history of Muskoka.

Bigwin Island, on Lake of Bays, is one of the most sought-after waterfront golf course communities in Muskoka. Photo by: Taylor Nullmeyer

The largest island on Lake of Bays in northeast Muskoka, Bigwin Island is only accessible by water and has been for its entire history. Named after Ojibway Chief Joseph Big Wind, Bigwin’s history can be traced back as far as the Anishinaabeg First Nations who used the 200-hectare island for summer hunting and also as a burial ground. In the 19th century, the Hudson’s Bay Company took it over as a trading post. As the fur and lumber trades slowly dissipated during the 1800s, they were replaced by an emerging tourism industry and the growth of lodges and resorts. Cliffs rising above sandy beaches and scenic bays appealed to guests who returned year after year for the incomparable views and secluded privacy. As the golden era of Muskoka’s resorts began in the late 19th and early 20th century, Bigwin Island entered a new chapter in its history.

Postcard perfect Bigwin Inn was a premier Muskoka summer destination beginning in the 1920s. In 1910, the island was purchased by Huntsville businessman Charles Orlando Shaw. Shaw was already well known in the Muskoka region as owner of the Anglo-Canadian Leather Company which operated a large tannery in the Huntsville area. Shaw made it his aim to create one of the largest and most opulent resorts of the entire Muskoka region – the Bigwin Inn.

Construction of the Inn stalled during the first World War but as the roaring ’20s dawned, efforts were renewed. After five years in development, the 350-room Bigwin Inn officially began receiving guests in 1920.

The project was an immediate success and became a focal point of social life in the area. Guests included the likes of Louis Armstrong, Clark Gable, Winston Churchill and John Diefenbaker.

Many of the guests found their way to the resort via the SS Bigwin which would ferry them from the mainland to the island. The ship was originally named the Elle Maria, after the wife of Pittsburgh industrialist James Kuhn, who commissioned it. Built in 1910, the ship sailed Lake Muskoka for 15 years, before being sold and moved to Dorset on Lake of Bays. Renamed the SS Bigwin, the ship spent the next 45 years moving guests back and forth between island and mainland.

Following Shaw’s death in 1942, the resort changed hands and began to fall into decline in the 1950s. Bigwin Inn closed in 1966 and the property and structures there began a slow descent into dereliction.

Numerous attempts to revive the island met with little success and by the late 1980s the entire island could have been purchased at a price of $500,000. But the island’s fortunes once again turned in the early 2000s when it was purchased by a group of investors. The island was revamped to include new summer residences and a golf course that is today ranked as one of the top 20 in the country.

Even the SS Bigwin has made a comeback. Restored by volunteers and community members over the course of a decade, she now sails regularly between the island and her home port in Dorset.

Like the entire Muskoka region, Bigwin Island has lived many different lives over the centuries. In her latest incarnation, Bigwin is thriving as one of the most unique and sought-after waterfront golf course communities in Muskoka. An excusive island paradise bordered by eight kilometres of shoreline on Lake of Bays, its lake vistas, privacy and world class resort services make it a premier destination.

Accessible only by water for its entire history, guests were ferried to Bigwin Island via the SS Bigwin.