Over a Century of Hospitality: the Settlement History of Willow Beach Cottages

Over a Century of Hospitality: the Settlement History of Willow Beach Cottages

Workman, Cheryl

Willow Beach Cottages
Host contact: Gage, Marie

Brunger, Alan
Department: Geography

TP-392

2003

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Willow Beach

This paper follows a small plot of land in the Haliburton Highlands from its use as a camping site for Algonquin Indians in the years prior to 1850, to a cottage resort in 2003.

Drawing on the strengths of both History and Geography, a settlement history of the Willow Beach property has been compiled. To reconstruct the past events occuring at Willow Beach as series of interviews, archival research and literature reviews have been drawn upon. Using multiple forms of qualitative research and analysis, the cultural landscape of Willow Beach has been recreated using a series of thematic maps. However, the complexity of the cognitive image can not be entirely captured within a thematic map or series of maps. To compensate for this potential loss of meaning during the transformation of information to maps, a chronological "story" has been produced to accompany the map series.

This settlement history follows a small plot of land in the Haliburton Highlands from its use as a camping site for Algonquin Indians in the years prior to 1850, to a cottage resort in 2003. During this 153-yer period, the cultural landscape of this lot has changed a great deal. Moving from a wilderness in every semse of the word, to open farmland, to a resort where the wilderness is slowly moving back onto the lot, although a much more "tamed" version of wilderness. Through all the physical and cultural changes that have occured on this small plot of land on the shores of Lake Kashagawigamog one characteristic has remained: the nature of hospitality th owners have all shown, and the pride they take in sharing the beautiful Haliburton County with others.

Trent University