S1 | Rewind Design | E1 Beverly by the Bay
Beverly By the Bay!
She is a lover of all things creative, curates exhibits in her home in Waterloo, and has an amazing knack for landscape painting. On todays show we talk about everything from the history of our cottage property, the vegetable boat garden, what an island “Isthmus” is!
Georgian Bay’s South Channel
all the way from Parry Sound out to the outer islands!
Intro
Welcome to Rewind Design - A Podcast dedicated to discovering the stories of Cottage Country in Ontario. Thank you so much for joining me on this journey and for the first official episode with a real live guest! Today on the show we'll be diving into a piece of cottage country I am very familiar with, the South Channel of Georgian Bay, home to my favourite place on earth. Our family cottage. And as I alluded to in my last episode, I will be speaking to a very important guest who happens to be one of the most influential people in my life - my mom! My mom is an amazing woman who is so passionate about the arts, is an amazing pie baker, and she is the world's best gardener. Keep reading to hear more about her personal cottager experience.
Segment 1: What am I grateful for this week?
Before we jump into the episode, I wanted to start off by sharing what I am grateful for this week. I really want to incorporate this segment at the beginning of each of my episodes, because I feel like it is so important to recognize and share even the small things we are grateful for. So, I’ll go first! I attended my first ever SCA (South Channel Association) meeting - for the AGM (Annual General Meeting). It took place at the Glenn Burney Patio, also on the South Channel, which is probably my favourite restaurant to go to in the summer because the patio is perched right on the water with a big screen floating on the water that plays sports, playoffs, and in our case the annual general meeting slides! They have the most amazing menu, and I love their seasonal mussels, to die for! I would definitely check them out if you are in the area. To speak quickly about the SCA, they are an amazing association to be a part of and I’ll just read off their main objectives:
• To advance, promote, maintain and work with like-minded organisations and individuals for the preservation, conservation, restoration and protection of the natural and scenic beauty, fish and wildlife and water quality of the area;
• To advance, promote maintain and sponsor conditions of health, sanitation, pollution control, safety and security in the area;
South Channel Association
Annual General Meeting at the Glenn Burney Patio! (you can spot me on the bottom right corner!)
So needless to say this organisation is doing some amazing work and is really working together with other local organisations such as the Georgian Bay Association, The Georgian Bay Biosphere and Georgian Bay Forever. So if you have a cottage in the South Channel, I would highly recommend joining! You will meet an amazing community of people in your area who care so deeply about the area, landscape and environment.
See links below to local associations:
https://southchannel.ca/ | https://georgianbay.ca/ | https://www.gbbr.ca/ | https://georgianbayforever.org/
South Channel History
So jumping into the history and geography of The South Channel, thank you to southchannel.org for an amazing summary of the history as follows. As an area, it is squeezed between Parry Island and Massasauga Park on the mainland, but it encompasses bays and channels of varying sizes and depths. Many of the cottages were built in the 50’s - 60’s and are home to third and fourth generation cottagers. Because it is so accessible from Parry Sound's many marinas as well as being so protected from the open water, it became an early gateway to reach Georgian Bay’s outer islands to the south. I will include a map in my blog post version of this episode. Fun fact - The French explorer Samuel de Champlain was the first European to record seeing part of the Great Lakes when he reached Georgian Bay from the north in 1615. The bay was named for Britain’s George IV by Captain Henry Bayfield of the Royal Navy. Many people who call Georgian Bay home have adapted to calling it colloquially just “The Bay” - and we’ve dropped the Georgian completely!
Georgian Bay is famously known for its rough, rigged and wild terrain and is often referred to as “The 30 000 Islands” - referring to the thousands of islands speckled along the archipelagos. On a map of the Great Lakes, you can see Georgian Bay to the Northeast of Lake Huron, connecting on many fronts. The Bay is over 300 km long, and 80km wide, and should really be called our 6th great lake.
There are only three other areas on the face of the earth that even remotely resemble them: one is in western Canada, the Islands of Puget Sound, the second is the rocky coast of Maine with its many coves, bays and islands, and the third is the islands in the Baltic Sea east of Stockholm, Sweden, and west of Helsinki, Finland. All these island areas take second place to the islands of the Georgian Bay, they are all located in salt water and do not have the rugged weather conditions which produce so much of the beauty one finds, in the windswept shores of the Georgian Bay Islands.
The Boat Garden
S1 | Rewind Design | E1 Beverly by the Bay
Today on the podcast I have my mom Beverly on the show! She is a lover of all things creative, curates exhibits in her town of Waterloo, and is an amazing knack for landscape painting. On todays show we talk about about everything from the history of the property, the vegetable boat garden, what an island “Isthmus” is.
Beverly took interior design as Humber College, worked in Toronto for a few years, met my Dad and moved up to Parry Sound with him in the late 80s! We lived as a family in Parry Sound for most of my childhood, and moved to Vaughan when I was 13 due to my dad’s career change. We bought our South Channel family cottage in 2011, with me and my twin sister in tow! The cottage is about 20 mins boat ride (depending on who is driving) down the south channel towards Sans Souci. The island is a medium size island with 5 cottages, and our property is on the isthmus which is the pinch point of the island where “a narrow strip of land with water on either side, forming a link between two larger areas of land.” We see the sunrise + the sunset on both sides and always have a breeze!
When we first came to the cottage we had a bit of a bear issue, so we weren’t gardening at first. So we took an old tinny that was bound for the dump, and loaded a ton of sticks, rocks and dirt into the vessel. We turned it into the most beautiful vegetable garden that gowns tomatoes, lettuce, squash and lots of different herbs!
The cottage itself is a simple building, with painted wood siding with a slanted roof and a large set of vintage windows in the front. It was built some time in the 60s and the original cottage still stand today with a few small updates like the renovation of our main bathroom in 2020 (see below for photos of the transformation).
To know more about the cottage, the newly designed bunkie and to get to know my mom - listen to Rewind Design the Podcast on your favorite hosting platform! Listen on the media player below.
Cottage Photos
Before and after of our Cottage Bathroom
The bathroom was a labor of love! We started this renovation in the summer of 2020 when I was working remotely from a design firm in Toronto. Notably we repurposed a dresser that was headed for the dump from our fav neighbors. I painstakingly refinished the finish to a deep espresso that contrasted the warm white we painted the wood paneling + ceiling. We added in new puck lights and scones to brighten up the room as well as a new quartz countertop + undermount sink. The new bathroom is inviting, warm and feels so spacious with the added mirrored towers on either side of the vanity. We love the contrasting new and old and the character it brings to the space!
The Bunkie for the Teens!
When we first bought the cottage, my mom had the great idea of building a bunkie on the back beach of the property. She designed the most functional space that, as a designer, I am so proud of her for creating. The bunkie is a rectangle block with the same shed roof as the cottage which allows for ample height for bunk beds on the taller side of the shed roof. The cabin has a central room with 2 bedrooms flanking either side, both with 4 windows, pine floors and rough sawn paneling. The exposed rafter give a rustic cottage feel that is contrasted by the modern light fixtures. The best part of the bunkie is the outdoor shower off the back deck that is tucked away into the trees! Rick Zanussi and his team from Canadian Contracting Services built the entire thing - and we love everything about it!
