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An early winter road – which one is uncertain – in Sinclair Township (Wendy Kimmel)
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In the 1920s, a track from the Sinclair Road appears to have led to Hugh Fleming’s camp at the mouth of Swain’s Bay, on Bella Lake, with an offshoot to J. J. Bailey’s camp on Rebecca Lake. These camps were probably the earliest forerunners of the cottages served by the Fieldale Road and its branches today.
The Fieldale Road was a significant development for the north shore of Rebecca Lake, following this shore between Rebecca and Bella. Robert A. Field, the youngest son of Henry Field, who arrived in Sinclair in 1878 (Lot 15, Concessions 4 and 5), held Lot 5 in both Concessions 7 and 8, between the two lakes. He and his wife Caroline started Fieldale Lodge on Rebecca Lake in 1933. By that time, a road had been extended as far as Harley Tynan’s fishing camp (later Tynoka Lodge) on land purchased from Hugh Fleming. Robert A. and his son Robert S. Field (16 years old) cut out a track for what became the Fieldale Road by hand with an axe and crosscut saw. Edgar Brook (Brookie) helped with his bulldozer “Bertha” to make a rough road to Fieldale Lodge.
Brookie and “Bertha” built many of the cottage roads that exist today, but he was also a lumberman. In the 1940s, he was operating Brook’s Mill at the southern tip of Rebecca Lake, and he extended the road beyond Fieldale for access to his logging camps. In 1949 he built the first log bridge across the Bella-Rebecca narrows. The first cottage lots sold by Robert Field in the 1950s had no road access until 1957, when Brookie graded a road along the trail to Buck Island Point.
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| The first narrows bridge, built by Edgar Brook, pictured here on an autumn evening in October 1965 (George Bramm photo, Rick Bramm) |
The next year, Robert Field registered a plan for 24 cottage lots on Rebecca and Bella Lakes. On the subdivision plan, what is now Fieldale Road was called “Caroline Street” (after his wife Carrie) and the current Buck Island Point Road was “Robert Street.” Later owners of Fieldale Lodge, Jack Welsh and his wife Bobbie (daughter of Gordon and Marion Hill of Limberlost), registered a subdivision plan for more lots between the lodge and the bridge, now accessible by road.
On March 23, 1977, the Plan of Subdivision M-527 was signed between the Township of Lake of Bays and Hutcheson/Weldwood; David Burgess and Bob Hutcheson then created lots on the north shore of Rebecca Lake following the continuation of the Fieldale Road across the causeway. Fieldale Road is named “Caroline Street” and the current Colonization Road, along the west shore of Bella Lake, is named “Old Sinclair Road” on the subdivision plans and agreements.
Further road-building was undertaken by Burgess and Hutcheson, eventually continuing to the turnaround at the end of today’s Fieldale Road.
Sources:
Burgess, David, “Fieldale Road” (presentation at Lake of Bays Library, Dwight, October 2013).
Township of Lake of Bays, “Plan and Field Notes of Subdivision of Part of Broken Lots 8 & 9 Concession VII and Part of Lot 8 Concession VIII, Township of Sinclair” (Plan of Subdivision M-527, 1977).