Ghosts of the Bay: A Guide to the History of Georgian Bay

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

Georgian Bay is part of Canada’s Great Lakes system. Although
officially a bay off Lake Huron, its immense size gives it the informal
status of “the sixth Great Lake.” This guide takes a quick trip
around the Georgian Bay coastline, stopping at major centres to fill in
a little history and set the scene for the book’s focus—the many
shipwrecks that give the Bay lots of publicity. The Bay is known for its
savage storms, unpredictable winds, and treacherous shoals. The 30,000
islands that dot the Bay make it both a cottager’s paradise and a
navigator’s nightmare. The guide gives directions on how to locate
many of the more spectacular shipwrecks suitable for exploration by
diving. For each, there’s a concise description of the events that led
to the wreck, what shape it is in today, and what conditions divers
should expect.

The guide also describes long-forgotten hotels, missions, camps, and
villages, introducing readers to sites where tragedies occurred, lives
were lost, and dreams were destroyed. The beauty of the Bay known to
tourists and cottagers shows a brooding, dark side.

The book is packed with maps, photos, references to nautical charts,
and cautions for the explorer who wants to visit some of the Bay’s 140
“ghost” sites. A videotape is available to accompany the book.

Ghosts of the Bay is a new, somewhat different, resource on the
region’s social history. It has value both as a guide for divers and
as entertaining reading for armchair explorers.