By John Francis
From the day it came into service in 1896, Cabot Head Lightstation has been a beautiful place, sandwiched between rocky Georgian Bay shoreline and serene Wingfield Basin.
A road was built from Dyers Bay to Cabot Head lightstation in 1962. Prior to that, the lightstation was accessible only by boat.
That road also provided public access to Cabot Head. In the early years, traffic was just a trickle, but by 2016, there were more than 10,000 vehicles per year. This was causing multiple problems.
Cabot Head Road is seven kilometres of narrow, gravel road, with several blind corners. Keeping it safe and passable was a challenge. But that wasn’t the biggest problem.
To get to Cabot Head Road, you have to drive through the village of Dyers Bay. The road through the village is a narrow, three-kilometre ribbon of pavement, threading its way among houses, garages and outbuildings. It was barely adequate for the residents to get access to their properties. It was never meant to handle an extra 10,000 vehicles.
That extra traffic was very unpleasant for the residents and cottagers in Dyers Bay, who were accustomed to taking their daily walks on the road and visiting with their neighbours.
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As is the case with all 19th century lightstations, Cabot Head was contaminated with mercury and lead (in those days, the light itself floated in a bath of mercury, which allowed it to rotate without friction). In 2017, the Government of Canada closed the lightstation to the public in order to remediate the lead and mercury.
Most residents of Dyers Bay sighed with relief when the traffic through their village was reduced.
Things were just about ready to return to full public access when high water washed out Cabot Head Road and the municipality closed it. That was the fall and winter of 2019/20.
Most residents of Dyers Bay were not unhappy about this turn of events. They got their village back.
The washout only affected two small sections of the road, and even there, single-file travel was possible, allowing Bruce Peninsula Bird Observatory to continue its work at Wingfield Basin.
In 2020, the Public Works Manager told council that the road could be repaired at a cost of somewhere over $200,000 but that there was no guarantee it wouldn’t wash out again.
Council chose not to act. You could hardly blame them. They knew that if they re-opened the road, nearly 200 landowners in Dyers Bay would be very annoyed. If they failed to open the road, a smaller group of traditional users of the road would be very annoyed. But if they opened the road and it washed out again, everybody would be annoyed.
Alternative suggestions to avoid Dyers Bay were completely unworkable. The road through the village cannot be widened and a different route to Cabot Head Road would cost millions.
In 2020, a proposal was advanced to turn Cabot Head Road into a cycling and pedestrian trail. The idea was to restore a single lane road, which would be closed to public traffic but would be accessible to stakeholders and emergency vehicles. This would be much less expensive than restoring a two-lane road.
The proponents secured a consensus among the various stakeholder groups and found funding to cover the expenses of the conversion. However, their consensus was fragile and conditional; it collapsed quickly when the municipality suggested changes. And so, the status quo persisted: the road remained closed.
Mike Campbell was one of the organizers of that original bike path proposal. He spoke at the Men’s Breakfast in Tobermory on April 11.
He explained that the bike and pedestrian trail idea has been advanced again, this time as a municipal initiative with a consultation process. Somewhere over 900 people filled out the survey; their responses were overwhelmingly in favour.
He explained that since 2017, the lightstation has been broken into five times, including broken doors and smashed windows which have caused a lot of water damage, despite volunteers’ best efforts to board things up. An important element of peninsula history is in danger of deteriorating beyond repair.
A walking and cycling trail would give the lightstation the traffic (and revenue) it needs to maintain itself, without spoiling life in the village of Dyers Bay.
Cross your fingers.
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What I find interesting is how some people get very upset about not being able to drive their cars to Cabot Head.
They aren’t at all upset about not being able to drive to Cove Island Lightstation (much more interesting and historic than Cabot Head).
They aren’t at all upset about not being able to drive to Flowerpot Island.
They aren’t at all upset about not being able to drive to Lion’s Head Lookout.
But losing access to a previously accessible place — that really stings.
