"If, on a lovely summer day, you were to return to the Ojibway after many years away, you might think that it hasn't changed very much at all. Even if it had been 50, 60, 70 years since last you saw it, the impression that the old place gives - the dock, the tower, the gabled roofs, the crest of trees - would accord with distant memories. The facade of the hotel itself has been altered very little since 1913, when the last expansion of the main building was completed. The central stone steps and the main veranda have been there since the hotel's very earliest years. Inside the hotel, the birch railing on the stairs is as it always was.

The reality, of course, is that it has changed."

That there is an 'Ojibway Today' is a miracle of sorts. A miracle wrought by groups of very determined cottagers devoted to retaining this historical treasure. People who have given enormous amounts of their time and money to ensure the Ojibway's survival by: buying the hotel from, founder, Hamilton Davis (1942); converting it from a hotel to a club (1962); creating the Ojibway Historical Preservation Society and, thereby, achieving designation under the Ontario Heritage Act and subsequent registration as a charity under the Income Tax Act of Canada (2001); acquiring recognition by the Royal Oak Foundation (affiliated with the National Trust of England) which agreed to accept tax-deductible international and U.S. donations (2002); and, raising almost $3 million for restoration (2002-2005).

All these efforts provide the cottagers and residents of Pointe au Baril with, what must surely be, one of the finest community centres in the world.

During its 10 week season, the days are filled with the 'thwat-thwat' sounds of tennis; the shrieks of delight from children at Camp Ojibway; the murmur of conversation on the porch; customers' oohs and aahs at the Gift Shop's offerings; the 'click-click' of the city-tied cottagers at their laptops on the screened in veranda (the only visual reminder of our modern age); and, the sighs of appreciation from well fed Tuesday and Thursday night diners.

Throughout the ghosts of the Ojibway's past keep a benign eye on the hubbub.

Passsage in Quotations is excerpted from "At The Ojibway - 100 Summers on Georgian Bay" by David Macfarlane