Georgian Bay is one of the most visually dramatic landscapes in Ontario. The eastern shore, known as the Thirty Thousand Islands, is a maze of granite islands, windswept pine, and clear water that stretches from Midland north to Killarney. It is also a region with a rich and often overlooked history of industry, settlement, and abandonment.
The bay's rugged beauty can make it easy to forget that this was once a major commercial waterway. Steamships and schooners carried lumber, fish, and passengers between dozens of ports along the shore. Sawmills processed timber from the interior. Fishing stations operated on remote islands. When the industries declined, many of these places were abandoned, and the forest and the waves reclaimed them.
The Lumber Ports
In the second half of the nineteenth century, Georgian Bay was the outlet for a massive lumber industry operating in the Muskoka, Parry Sound, and Algonquin regions. Logs were driven down rivers to mills on the bay shore, and the finished lumber was shipped by boat to markets in the United States and elsewhere in Canada.
Towns like Byng Inlet, French River, and Depot Harbour were major lumber shipping points. Depot Harbour, on Parry Island near Parry Sound, was once one of the largest ports on the Great Lakes, with grain elevators, rail yards, and a substantial residential community. When the railway was rerouted in the mid-twentieth century, the town was abandoned. Today, the ruins of the grain elevator and the foundations of the houses are all that remain, accessible by boat or by a rough trail from the mainland.
Byng Inlet, further north, had a similar trajectory. A booming mill town in the late 1800s, it shrank dramatically when the timber ran out. The settlement survives in diminished form, but the scale of the old mill foundations along the inlet hints at its former importance.
Georgian Bay's rugged eastern shore hides the remnants of communities that once thrived on lumber and fishing.
Island Life and Abandonment
Many of the Thirty Thousand Islands were once seasonally or permanently inhabited. Fishing stations operated on remote islands, supporting small communities of fishermen and their families. When the commercial fishery declined in the twentieth century, most of these stations were abandoned.
Some islands also had logging operations, quarries, or summer resorts that have since been abandoned. Paddling the islands, you occasionally come across foundation walls, old docks, or the remains of buildings in various states of collapse. These sites are fascinating but fragile. The combination of harsh winters, wave action, and thin soil means that structures deteriorate quickly once they are no longer maintained.
Shipwrecks
Georgian Bay was a notoriously dangerous body of water for shipping. Storms could build quickly, and the eastern shore's maze of islands and shoals was treacherous even in good weather. Hundreds of vessels were lost on the bay over the centuries, and many of their wrecks remain on the bottom.
Some wrecks are accessible to divers, particularly around the Fathom Five National Marine Park at the tip of the Bruce Peninsula. Others lie in deeper water or in locations that are difficult to reach. The wrecks are a remarkable underwater archive of the bay's commercial history, from lumber schooners to passenger steamers.
Exploring Georgian Bay
Much of Georgian Bay's most interesting exploration requires a boat. The eastern shore and the islands are not accessible by road in most places, and the most historically significant sites tend to be on or near the water. Kayaking is an excellent way to explore the coast, as it allows you to access small bays and channels that larger boats cannot reach.
On land, the Bruce Trail follows the Niagara Escarpment along the western shore of the bay, passing through some spectacular scenery. The towns along the shore, Midland, Penetanguishene, Parry Sound, and Killarney, all have museums and heritage sites that provide context for the region's history.
For those interested in combining abandoned places with natural scenery, Georgian Bay is hard to beat. The ruins you find here are set against one of the most beautiful backdrops in Ontario, and the remoteness of many sites means you are likely to have them to yourself.