June 6, 2020 – Nonessential Ban Lifted For Tourism! We Will Open For Ontario Residents On Saturday, June 20!

Hello everyone!

It was announced two days ago that resorts would now be allowed to accept Canadian customers as of yesterday! This is another step in our province slowly reopening the economy, and is a great step forward. However, this news does not come without some newly required protocol, and of course a little confusion. It was also announced at the beginning of the month that Ontario would be extending it’s state of emergency until the end of June, which is the reason for a lot of the protocol that will have to be followed.

I will be trying to decipher the regulations and determine what we will need to do over the next week, and will try to keep this up to date as I learn anything. For now this is what we know:

Currently we are allowed to provide cabin rentals to Canadian groups (only from Ontario) that all live within the same household. We are however not allowed to take any campers as publicly shared facilities such as our shower house have to remain closed, and we do not have power, sewer, and water hook ups. Beaches are allowed to be used, but social distancing practices must be followed and enforced. It seems most other publicly shared areas will have to remain closed (ie. our firepit, etc.) but I am looking to clarify this for sure. We will also have to put some new temporary rules in place as well, like only one cabin in the fish cleaning house at a time, etc. Sanitation and cleanliness will be a top priority for us, so we appreciate everyone’s cooperation with following whatever rules we have to enforce, and in doing their part disinfecting things after their use.

It seems as though we will be able to offer boat and motor rentals still, but I will not be able to do any guiding. I am not sure about travel restrictions for people from separate households sharing vehicles on the way here and then sharing a boat once here. In the meantime I would think it’s best to keep to your own household just to be certain and for simplicity. I believe we will be able to offer gas and minnow sales like normal, but will be asking guests to wait outside the minnow shed rather than coming inside. Same with the use of our main office. We will have to restrict guests to only coming in if they require something, and you will have to remain outside to use the internet. Only one group will be allowed in at a time.

We have decided to remain closed until Saturday June 20, to allow us enough time to understand all of these new rules and prepare accordingly. I am also in the middle of a number of small renovations and jobs in the cabins and will need the time to finish that up as well. As mentioned I will update this blog as we learn more, and all of the information about new policies will be available and in your cabin upon arrival.

It is possible we will see a lot of these restrictions lifted at the end of the month IF Ontario lifts the state of emergency. If it does not, it is possible we will have to enforce them longer. As for the border closure, it is still potentially opening on June 21. This does of course have the potential to be extended again. We hope it won’t be extended, but with Ontario still being in a state of emergency until the end of June, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was.

All in all this is a good step forward for not just us but for the whole tourism industry and the province as well. I believe reopening is going to be a slow procedure that will be complicated and have many steps, but at least we have begun that procedure.

In lighter news, things around camp are looking great! As mentioned i am trying to use this down time to fix up some small things in the cabins and to do a little painting and staining as well. We have a contractor that will be putting an addition on cabin 1 later this summer, building a newer bathroom off the back of the cabin and opening the current bathroom up to expand the kitchen. I wouldn’t expect to see this finished until fall, but we do plan on doing this to all 4 of the smaller cabins over the next few years.

I haven’t been out fishing as much as I thought I would be, but the walleye are biting well. It was a slow start as we had a late spring and an early opener. i believe the fish were still spawning way up the rivers on opening day, but were starting to work their way back out by the following weekend. The lake is still low for this time of year, but we have got some rain that has brought it up a bit, with more in the forecast. The weather has been a little unpredictable. We had a week or so of extremely hot weather that was followed by a real cold snap with a frost two nights in a row. Now things are back to normal and are warm when the sun is out and just a little cool when it isn’t or its windy.

It is very strange being here for this long and not seeing you guys. We have been enjoying being able to use this downtime to do some much needed work around camp and to finish a few personal projects and jobs as well, but we are really looking forward to getting things back to normal.

I hope everyone is safe and well and we will hopefully start seeing you soon!

Ryan