Bigwin Inn

Eileen Goltz is Public Documents Librarian at Laurentian University.

“In its glory days Bigwin Inn was the quintessence of elegance in
Canadian summer places.” So Douglas McTaggart describes a famous
Ontario resort that was open from 1920 to 1970. It had catered to the
wealthy, offering them elegance and gracious living, but, prior to 1947,
no alcoholic beverages. McTaggart, who is dedicated to preserving the
legacy of the Inn, has recaptured some interesting moments in its
history. His final paragraph of text pleads that the Inn be granted
heritage designation, structural stabilization, and protection against
an ill-defined future.

This is a local history prepared for the general public. It
intersperses pages of captioned photographs with only 23 pages of text.
Although the text is generally clear (albeit biased toward the subject),
there are some unfortunate problems. One is overuse of the descriptive
word “dodecagonal,” with no explanation of what it describes—a
polygon with 12 sides and 12 angles. Another is the interchanging of Her
Royal Highness, Her Majesty, and Her Royal Majesty in the short
discussion of the 1943 visit to Bigwin of then Princess Juliana of the
Netherlands. Another is the author’s belief that World War II ended
with an armistice, a view not held by military historians. Finally,
there are several detailed biographical sketches of people the author
believes were important in the Inn’s history; the space could have
been more profitably taken up with further information about the Inn
itself and its clientele.

The book, both text and pictures, is chronologically organized,
descriptive, and nostalgic. Despite its textual problems, it is a book
worth owning. The many photographs are well captioned and in themselves
ensure that the book will be welcome on any coffee table.