A Brief History of Fairwood Island:
Five generations of the family have known Fairwood as their summer home, a place that has seen stages of many lives and yet has itself changed almost imperceptibly over the past century. In 1904, Mary Shaw-Wood visited Pointe au Baril and built a summer home for her three children, Richard, Joe and Isabel, on Push-Wah the following summer. She was rumoured to be leery of unpredictable wilderness and preferred to have a small island where she could see anyone or anything approach.
Properties were purchased in the names of each of the children. Richard who was to die in Britain on his Sopworth machine in 1917 was given Olive Island in Shawanaga Bay named after his wife. Joe owned Hopewell Island in Shawanaga Bay, Hopewell being the name given one of the Wood ships which had brought many early Adventurers to the Carribbean. Isabel was given OK Point on Richmond Island in 1908.
In 1908 Thomas Urquhart Fairlie was a young resident engineer working on the CPR line. His diaries record his work on the Sucker Bridge in Pointe au Baril. On August 5th at a dance at the Ojibway Hotel his diary tersely records ‘met Isabel’.
Their first son John was conceived on a trip back to the Shaw-Wood home in Bermuda and was born in Toronto in 1911. A second son Wood was born in 1920.
The new family continued to come up to stay with Mary on Push-Wah. In 1922 Urquhart built the main cottage on Fairwood. Designed with a well engineered clarity it was constructed by a crew of Dutch carpenters who put the house together in eight days. Most of the furniture and Japanese prints in a photograph of the newly finished living room in 1922 are still to be found in the living room today. Isabel’s brother, Joe lived in a Peiking mandarin’s walled palace in which he displayed and exported antiques. Many of the mementoes found in the cottage, were sent by him back to his sister Isabel.
Richmond Island which was later to become Fairwood had been split into many separate parcels which were still held by the early American investors. Between 1924 and 1936, in nine separate purchases Urquhart bought out the other properties and undertook the clearing of the island.
The island had been logged entirely in the 1880’s and burnt over shortly after. As a result the flat rocks were strewn with charred and overturned stumps. Clearing the island and creating an extensive path work occupied Urquhart and his sons for many years.
In the 1930’s the tennis court was set up on one of the level cleared rocks. The granite bounce, generally true was nevertheless excessively lively. The nearby badminton court was strategically set up to enjoy violent west cross winds greatly enhancing the challenges of this sport.
In 1928 in a moment of affluence Thomas Urquhart bought Riff, a 26’ Chris Craft and constructed a boathouse just large enough to dock it. Riff was reputed to reach 40 mph in full throttle but thought nothing of gulping down barrels of fuel.
Thomas Urquhart was a keen conservationist. In 1926 he arranged that the Richmond Island Game Preserve be set up under the Ministry of Lands and Forests. He introduced the pheasant and grouse whose descendants are still to be found today. As chairman of the Georgian Bay Association he worked to establish a policy for fisheries and a hatcheries programme.
He was also a keen gardener. Vegetable gardens were created by reclaiming soil from the internal lakes. The sons would be left with lists of tasks to complete, paths to clear, gardens to tend while Urquhart was down in the city. He would return on the weekends and immediately inspect advancement of the works and proclaim that not a soul has watered the garden since his last visit.
Urquhart was deeply interested in local history and convinced that Champlain would have passed through the Ojibway bay on their way up the coast. A Champlain cross was set up in Champlain Park on Fairwood near where there was reputed to be an Indian ‘fort’ or summer camp on the south shore. In 1948, for the Champlain Society, he organised a series of Champlain Crosses, including the ones in Orillia and Bala to commemorate the path of the early explorers.
John and Wood returned from the War and were married soon after, Wood to Marnie (Marjory) Cox and John to Anne Fyshe. Between the two families they had six grandchildren as well as Peter Saegert, the son of Anne who had been widowed by the war.
During the 1950’s more senior members of the family, grandparents and great aunts would come for a Pointe au Baril visit and stay at the Ojibway. One of the more daunting aspects of an Ojibway stay was the little box containing a coiled rope positioned beside every bedroom window. A small sheet of typed instructions explained how in the case of fire to suspend this from the window and let yourself down to the rock far below. It was tantalising to imagine Aunt Annie Fairlie, with her silver cane, or ‘Daddygrand’, Max Fyshe undertaking such a venture.
John loved his days on the Bay, nothing better than an expedition to the McCoys or Minks ‘where men are men’ in the 16’ Peterborough fishing boat. He took great pride in his knowledge of the Bay, the treacherous rocks and alignments with trees and beacons to steer between them. He introduced his sons to the secret fishing spots north of the McCoys.
1964 was the year of the Chinese junk, the Mandarin Duck which had been loaned by Tuzo Wilson during his sabbatical in the Far East. Expeditions around the bay in the junk, and in particular up to Manitoulin drew out all of John’s navigational skills and his families powers of endurance. Dense fogs punctuated by sudden violent storms followed the junk to every destination and every bolthole.
Wood and Marnie became avid sailors, Wood initially building his own Y-Flyer, Spindrift. The sailing bug took hold like a limpet and Wood bought first a Shark, Dolly, and then an Arlberg, Tigger, proposing to sail from Pointe au Baril through the Straits of Magellan. John also had a Y-Flyer which tended to bring out some of the more latent and authoritative instincts of ancestral captains and somewhat dampened his descendants delight in the sound of flapping canvas.
After John’s early death in 1966, Anne’s brother Taffy Fyshe and his children became regular summer visitors. Taffy was a tireless fisherman and woodsman and helped to create one of the most impressive woodpiles in the area. Taffy took great delight in the après fish social life of the bay and has left behind many legends for his descendants.
Wood continued to build paths and clear the island. Causeways were constructed of gigantic boulders manoeuvred into position from some distance using ancient Egyptian principles. In the 1960’s he excavated ‘Cleopatra’s Bathtub’, one of the larger potholes at the east end, 4’ in diameter it proved to be 19 feet deep.
With immense attention to detail and many sticks of dynamite Wood also built his own cottage looking up the Empress channel, quite the most solidly built structure on Fairwood.
During the late 60’s the extended families of cousins constructed an ambitious treehouse on Archers Island in the middle of Fairwood. The treehouse included six platforms, some double-decker at 20 feet above ground with tents and cedar pole walkways. A pulley system was rigged to transport sentries to a lookout post. Many survivors recall the parties of the heyday (or the parental nadir) of the treehouse.
During the 1980’s and 1990’s the next generation of children appeared. The list of people who looked forward to part of the summer on Fairwood has constantly grown. Descendants of Isabel and Thomas Urquhart Fairlie come back to Fairwood from B.C. and from the UK. The traditions have remained however and the new generation has been exposed each summer to path clearing sessions to maintain the routes that link all parts of the island.
A Fairwood Woodlands Plan has been developed which involves a cooperative agreement among the many families to maintain the path system, to create wildlife sanctuaries and replant native trees in key areas. A Fairwood.com website has been set up to share information about the wildlife, to monitor and share concerns about environmental change.
After a century of occupation and observation changes are very slow but perceptible. The traditions and the paths are maintained, and these have maintained the sense of the relationships of the extended family. Fairwood remains a place deep in the hearts of all of the grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren of the Fairlie and Shaw-Wood vision of a century ago.
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