The Old Brewery Bay: A Leacockian Tale

Chris Raible is the author of Muddy York Mud: Scandal and Scurrility in
Upper Canada.

As every pamphlet promoting Orillia proudly proclaims, for a number of
years Stephen Leacock lived (summered, really) on the edge of town, in a
cottage built on land overlooking Lake Couchiching known (on one old
map, at least, Leacock gleefully discovered) as “Brewery Bay.” It
was there that he penned the Mariposa stories that made him
famous—and, some citizens felt, made Orillia infamous. Today his
edifice is a tourist attraction, much to the pride (and profit) of
townsfolk, to which pilgrims flock to pay homage to the humorist.

’Twould be unfair to dub this book “stormy sketches of a
small-minded town,” because it chronicles too many examples of
imagination, energy, and triumph as it traces the reactions of
Orillians—to boisterous parties held at the house by Leacock, to
proposals (after his death) for saving his haven from neglect, to
schemes for raising funds for its preservation, to projects for
promoting it, and to campaigns mounted to discourage new development
around it. There were many ordeals to overcome, but the story of the old
house has a happy ending—to date, at least.

No laughing matter, this tale, although it has its ironic moments. It
is worth reading, not simply by Leacock lovers, CanLit students, and
local-history buffs, but by all who seek guidance (and need comfort) in
their own efforts for historical preservation and heritage promotion.