Betty Wheeler--South Channel Pioneer

It may be hard for recent arrivals in our area--say in the last 25 years--to picture what cottaging was like here way back in the 1930's.  Betty's parents, the George Johnstons, bought Pina Blanco, across from the osprey nest, in 1929, and it has remained in family hands ever since.

Fishing was different then.  Betty would tell of her mother being out in her boat at 5 a.m. most mornings and often back with one or two trout before others were out of bed.  One day, her mother landed a 32 pounder which won the prize as the largest catch in the district.  Another time, her mother caught a 19 pound Muskie at Seven Mile Narrows.

Betty always loved to reminisce about those happy, carefree days with no hydro, but coal oil lamps and lanterns and ice cut in the winters to provide ice boxes in the summer.  In those pre-World War II days, she remembered only seven to eight cottages in the South Channel, but there were several hotels all the way down to Midland only open in the summer.  And, of course, the old Midland City passenger boat which steamed right passed their cottage and stopped running in 1951.

Betty's last visit to her beloved cottage was in 1999, 70 years after her family had settled there.  Then in 2002, she moved to Belvedere Heights in Parry Sound, which brought her full circle to those enchanted, far-off days in the South Channel.  Her boys, Don and Barry, and families are, not surprisingly, members of the South Channel Association.

Betty died late last year, but her memory will hover for a long time over this part of Georgian Bay that she loved so fervently for so long.

 

Submitted by Gervis Black