By John Francis
As 2020’s stunning tourist season winds down to a dull roar, Bruce Peninsula locals are beginning to emerge from self-imposed lockdown and look around, to see what’s left after the horde departs.
Northern Bruce Peninsula Council held a Special Meeting on Sept 16 to discuss “Traffic Management Issues” which I think is polite code for overcrowding. I described the meeting in the Reporter’s Notebook column on page 3.
But there were a few moments that really crystallized the day.
Councillor Jamie Mielhausen’s thumbnail introduction: “I’ve lived on the same road my whole life. There used to be ten cars a day; now it’s ten cars a minute. We’ve got to do something about that”.
Whew.
Peninsula Bruce Trail Club President John Grandy: The Bruce Trail’s mission is to provide a public footpath while preserving the environment it passes through. “We seem to be overachieving on the first objective to the detriment of the second objective.”
Whew again.
The public comments thread of the Traffic Management meeting contained a number of thoughtful insights. Some MNBP residents were stressed by the crowds swarming around their properties. They did not feel safe venturing out to visit the places they loved, the places they had moved here to be close to. There were too many people there with nobody wearing masks — it didn’t feel safe.
Some might call that NIMBY. I think it’s a little different than that. I would call it SIMBY — Stuck In My Back Yard — a sense that it is not safe to leave one’s own property.
Do I as a property owner have any right to feel safe if I leave my property?
Do I have a right to feel safe walking around my village? Do I have a right to feel safe walking to Mermaid’s Cove (aka Burnt Point) or Little Dunks Bay or Little Cove? Do people in Lion’s Head have the right to feel safe walking to the Lookout?
Do people with boats moored at Lion’s Head marina have a right to a parking space at the marina so they can go sailing?
Whew.
Where is the dividing line between the rights of a local resident and the rights of a Canadian citizen (aka a daytripper)?
The Provincial Government closed down Canada’s Wonderland. We got their people up here instead.
The Provincial Government closed down the SkyDome. We got the baseball fans up here instead.
The CFL cancelled its season and now the Argonaut fans are coming up here instead. Not to mention the Ti-Cat fans.
And now they’ve closed down strip clubs. This is not going to be pretty.
“Is more people good or bad?” facilitator Peter Politis asked the stakeholders at the Sept 16 Meeting. Nobody volunteered to answer. “Who is for and against tourism?” he asked a few moments later. Once again, nobody leaped to answer.
It’s a lot more complicated than that.
Do we want daytrippers? In previous years they often arrived in buses, carrying box lunches. Sometimes they were booked for a boat tour; sometimes not.
This year they arrive in vehicles, often carrying coolers or portable BBQs. They walk to the shore — sometimes 5 km in flipflops — then set up their grill and have a party. Often they find that it isn’t worth carrying everything back to their car. Their excess baggage takes up a steadily increasing footprint along our shorelines.
How do we “plan” for too many tourists? It’s not their fault they are too numerous. Instagram, Facebook, TripAdvisor and TikTok — not to mention the official websites of Tobermory Chamber of Commerce and Bruce County Tourism — all promised them crystal clear water and miles of untrammelled shoreline. Why would anybody choose not to come here?
Then they arrive, get turned away at three National Park locations and end up elbow-to-elbow at Tobermory or Big Tub light or Dunks Bay. “Let’s get out of here!”
Do the crowds of people who arrive in Tobermory and Lion’s Head have a right to expect the experiences they’ve been promised?
Whew.
