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Causeway between Bella and Rebecca Lakes, spring, 1950s, with private property sign (J. David Burgess)
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Just past the Fieldale Road bridge is a narrow strip of naturally occurring sandy land separating Bella and Rebecca Lakes. This causeway became contested territory in 1958 in a confrontation known to locals as the “Gaza Strip” incident, uniting local cottagers to oppose a proposed heavy development on Bella Lake and prompting the establishment of the Bella-Rebecca Cottagers Association.
Cheap Cottage Lots for Sale
Robert Adam Field of Fieldale Lodge owned Lot 7, Concession 8 on the western shore of Bella Lake in the 1950s. He received an offer to purchase the lot – which had 3,400 feet of shoreline and was not quite 100 acres in size – from two men who proceeded to draw up a cottage lot plan with more than 60 waterfront lots and many more back lots in the bush. They advertised the lots on Toronto radio stations for as little as $89 (up to $399) and sold a great number for cash, sight unseen.
But there were catches. First, the developers had in fact not yet purchased the property and did not hold title. They had not registered a subdivision plan; although the lots did meet the minimum square footage required by the province, the shoreline lots were very narrow with only 50 feet of frontage. Nor was there a public road access. The causeway, the only land route to the property, belonged to Hugh Feasby, who owned Lot 7, Concession 8, immediately to the south.
As a cheap cottage lot scam, the plan was not unique. The Ontario Department of Planning and Development found itself investigating “a number of land development operations” in the district of Muskoka, all of which “appear to be characterized by the offering of wonderful building lots at unbelievably low prices and the act of transferring all responsibility to the purchaser,” the Huntsville Forester reported on August 21, 1958. The planning and development minister warned that, in some cases, purchasers found that lots they had assumed to be on the water were in fact hundreds of feet away or were not the beautiful building sites they had been shown.
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Photo and story from the Globe & Mail, August 15, 1958 (J. David Burgess) | |
Confrontation on the Causeway
On Bella Lake, a confrontation occurred on a Saturday in August, as new “owners” arrived to view “their” lots and cottagers barred the causeway with snow fencing and no trespassing signs. The Ontario Provincial Police arrived to intervene, and the incident was covered by the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, and the Huntsville Forester. Graham Atkin, proprietor of Billie Bear Lodge, was criticized in the Star for rallying cottagers to prevent new (and less affluent) cottagers from locating on the lake.
One person who may have contributed to that story was Edward Cox of Toronto, who had paid a $9 down payment on an $87 lot and “believed that the cottage and tourist camp owners at Bella Lake had got together and persuaded the owner of the road to let them put up the barricade because they don’t want any more cottagers up there,” according to a Forester report on August 28. “Company representatives told him they had just taken up an option on the property until they saw how it would sell, and since there turned out to be no access to the proposed subdivision, they were willing to give him his money back and they would drop the option, Mr. Cox said.”
Cox refused the refund. “[T]hat lot is mine: I paid for it and I want it,” he was quoted as saying. That the developers had no title to sell the land in the first place apparently escaped him. Most unlucky would-be purchasers lost their money.
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| Causeway between Bella and Rebecca Lakes, 1959 (J. David Burgess) |
Cottagers Respond
As an unorganized township, Sinclair was more vulnerable than neighbouring townships such as Sisted, which had passed a subdivision control by-law. The new Bella-Rebecca Cottagers Association, led by Graham Atkin, discussed buying the property from Bob Field, but when that plan stalled it was purchased in October 1958 by Stewart and Kay Burgess, cottagers on Buck Island Point. In 1969, their children created four lakefront lots. Since then additional lots have been created, although four lots/cottages are still owned by Burgess family members.
Stewart’s and Kay’s son David and his wife Viriginia Burgess purchased the Lot 7, Concession 7, which included the causeway, from Hugh Feasby in 1972; two years later, they dedicated it to the Township of Lake of Bays as a public road. David Burgess then extended the Fieldale Road to the west end of Lot 7. It was completed by the Hutcheson family to its present terminus in Hutcheson Bay.
Sources:
Burgess, David, “Fieldale Road” (presentation at Lake of Bays Library, Dwight, October 2013).
Huntsville Forester, “May Crack Down on Land Developers to Protect the Public, Minister Says,” August 21, 1958, p. 1; “Barbed Wire, No Trespassing Signs Greet Prospective Buyers of Bella Lake Cheap Cottage Site Property,” August 28, 1958, p. 1