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Photo, of Bears Rump Island, actually a slide image, taken by my dad, David Milne, circa 1948.
I have always been fascinated with Bears Rump Island, ever since I first saw it in 1946. It lies seven miles off the eastern coast of the Bruce Peninsula near Tobermory, Ontario. Over the years I heard that the island resembled the rear end of a bear sticking out of the water. I also heard that the Indians actually called it the same thing in their language, but I've never been able to find out who or when actually named as such.
Tobermory was a small fishing town in the 1940s, located 300 miles north of Ferndale, Michigan, where I lived in the early years. I remember my uncle, Walter Hall, borrowing my mother's car to drive his family to someplace "far up north in Canada" for a vacation. I eventually learned they went to the end of a 50-mile long peninsula (The Bruce Peninsula) to a small town to catch a ferry boat across 30 miles of open water to Manitoulin Island. When they got to the ferry landing in Tobermory they learned, however, that the Norisle ferry boat was sold out for the next two or three days, but they could rent a cabin two miles outside of town and just relax on a beautiful beach while waiting for the reservation that they now had. They chose to rent the cabin.
When uncle Walter, Aunt Florence, and cousin John Hall all returned from this trip we heard all kinds of stories about "beautiful, secluded location," "huge fish in the inlets and bays," "water so pure you can see the bottom in 100 ft.," and other incredible descriptions that sounded almost too good to be true. My parents opted to go there the next summer, which we did.
Hilda Belrose owned about ten cabins on Dunks Bay, where Walter and family stayed the year before. It was cute how she had "Bel" as a prefix for the names of all her cabins, and we arrived at Belgrove cabin, at the eastern end of Dunks Bay after about an eight-hour drive into the night. We had a wood stove for cooking, kerosene lamps for lighting (no electricity there in those days), and a wonderful smell of the woods around us. The next morning I got up and went outside and saw this amazing island far out in Georgian Bay. (I later learned it was seven miles off shore.) I fell in love with it immediately.
Map of Georgian Bay. Dunks Bay is too small to be shown on this map but is about one mile south of Tobermory on the eastern side of the Bruce Peninsula. Bears Rump Island is seven miles from the beach at Dunks Bay.
The Norisle at the ferry dock in Tobermory Harbor, being loaded with cars for the trip to Manitoulin island.
A view of about half of Tobermory. i remember the restaurant and the general store just beyond it. Cragie's restaurant, a classic, is across the street. The small, white building in the center was the gas station, pool hall, and moonshine center of the area. Many stories of the day may be told at a later time.
This view is across the end of Tobermory Harbour. The barn type building was where my dad would rent a cabin from Hilda Belrose. This photo from the 1940s is the way Tobermory looked when I first went there many years ago.
Bears Rump Island from BelGrove cabin
My mother's car, a 1940s Pontiac I believe, parked in front of our house on Woodland St. in Ferndale, Michigan.
We drove this route for many years in the 1940s and continue to today. The Bruce Peninsula starts at Wiarton (arrow). It's 50 miles long as the crow flies, but in the 1940s & early 50s the roads wound around so many swamps and bluffs it was more like 65 miles or more long.
The Google Map shows the fishing town of Tobermory. The blue arrow indicates Dunks Bay. Bears Rump Island is out in Georgian Bay, visible only from the southern end of Dunks Bay beach. Seven miles of sometimes dangerous waters separates the island from the mainland.
Georgian Bay in itself could actually be classified as a small Great Lake. There were times we went out to the island in calm waters only to find huge waves, higher and longer than the boat, coming in when we left.
Tobermory became our beloved summer vacation spot forever following our first visit. We returned to Belgrove cabin every year, according to my dad's vacation from work time. However, by the early 1950s Dad decided to build a cabin at the other end of the beach.
Note: a few lights of BelGrove cabin can barely be seen back in the woods at the far end of the beach, and the sand pathway in the foreground leads to my dad's new cabin. My mother is walking on the beach with beloved dog Sox, our true companion for many years. From this end of Dunks Bay we could no longer see Bears Rump Island. The poles in the beach (center picture) separate the public beach from the private end.
This is the cabin my dad built in the early 1950s.
The view of Dunks Bay from our front window.
My dad spent many hours sitting near the fireplace. Note the handmade fire screen. It worked as good anything you could buy in the store.
All walls were covered with white spruce. It had a distinct aroma, so when we built our house near Lapeer I went to the same sawmill that cut this wood and lined our house in it as well.
Now that we had our own cabin we could go to Tobermory for as long as we liked, not just two or three weeks when my dad's vacation came up. We would stay entire summers and he would join us when he could.
And still, the allure of Bears Rump Island seemed to be calling me somehow.
At least once every summer I would take our small motor boat out to the island and just hang out for an hour or so. Since no cabins were allowed to be built on it, nor private citizens to own any land near the channel buoy, Bears Rump Island was as far removed from humanity as is possible to find. I loved it out there. There were birds but no animals. One time there was, however, a bear on the island that had walked out across the winter ice, but then swam back to shore once the ice started to disappear. There's not enough food out there to supply a bear. But my attraction to the island was stronger than I realized. In 1958, at 16 years old, I decided to go out there for an "extended stay." It lasted eleven days.
Slab rocks on the southern end of the island.
Steep cliffs surround a large part of the island. If you're walking through the woods at the top of the cliffs you need to know when to stop walking.
Bears Rump Island is covered with drop-off cliffs and rugged terrain, but one end has flat surfaces of rocks. I carefully pulled the boat up onto the rocks so it couldn't drift off in the night, then took my meager belongings back from the water's edge to be away from the wetness of being too close to any waves.
A navigation buoy bobbed around out in the water in a straight line from the stony point. It was a marker for 1) danger on the east side of it and, 2) safe to turn 30° once past it to Perry Sound, about 40 miles on the other side of Georgian Bay.
A long, rocky point extends from the SW corner of the island. The flat, slab rocks where I stayed are along the right side of the picture.
Navigation Buoy
My meager belongings didn't include a sleeping bag, and I never needed it. I was an Eagle Scout and had grown up camping out in all kinds of conditions. All I had was a summer blanket and I slept on the rocks. I had a lot of canned tuna, potato chips, and other foods that wouldn't spoil. Anything that was canned I put into a waterproof bag and hung in the water. (Note: Georgian Bay water is never warm. We still had ice bergs in Dunks Bay every May. I learned to swim in it regardless.)
My daily routine quickly evolved into something of total ease, with no sense of hurry. I was a horn player in those days and still needed to practice every day to keep up a high level of performance, but I decided to let that go until I returned to the mainland. I didn't know how many days I'd be staying at this time, but realized I may never have another chance to stay on the island for a length of time like this.
My days began when I'd wake up on the rocks literally at dawn's early light. (East is the opposite direction of the rocky point). The first thing that I noticed upon waking is that I wasn't tired at all. I was wide awake. No sleep hangover. And I could see the horizon slowly bringing in the next day, little by little.
I noticed a strange phenomenon with the sun. When it began to appear across the water it rose very slowly, first a little, then maybe halfway up, then about 3/4 of the way up, and then it ... stopped! I would just sit there watching it, wondering what type of weirdness I was witnessing as it hung motionless, as if suspended in time. Then, after a long moment, the sun just "poited" upwards and was in the sky! It just suddenly pounced from its motionless state to be fully visible above the water. I didn't know if was something due to clouds, but there were no clouds.
This same phenomenon occurred every morning. Finally I came to the conclusion that it might be due to air refraction. For instance, when we look straight above us we're looking through less air then if we look at the horizon and then into the beyond. I don't know if that's what caused this weird optical illusion but that's what I guessed it was.
After the sun was up I would start collecting some twigs and wood for a breakfast fire. There was no danger of it getting out of control because 1) I wouldn't build a fire if there was any wind, and 2) rocks don't burn. Following breakfast I'd wander the rocky beach looking for scurrying critters in the water, or maybe I'd go for a swim. I was a strong swimmer in those days, but still didn't venture too far from shore in case there was some unknown current. Then I might go looking for any sign of animal presence on the island. (I never found any). Obviously there were birds and sea gulls which I'll address in an addendum to this article at a later time. Eventually I'd always find myself wandering out to the rocky point after all of this.
When I was at the island in the late 1950s the water level of Georgian Bay was higher. Only the end of the point was above water. I had to skip from rock to rock to get out there, and sometimes walk through shallow water as well. Getting my feet wet bothered me not. I didn't wear socks and my tennis shoes dried out quickly in the summer sun.
To the north was the McGregor Channel, north of Tobermory, and south of the huge Manitoulin Island. The channel was capable of creating huge waves as they rolled across Lake Huron, then were squeezed into the narrow confines of the Bruce Peninsula on one side and the north shore islands on the other before exploding into Georgian Bay. And "explode" is not an exaggeration. Channel waves were unpredictable and dangerous. I once accidently blundered into them in a bigger boat than I've shown here, only to find myself trying to go over waves that were about 6' longer that the length of my boat.
But now, perched on a rock at the end of my little point, time was non existent. I would sit there and watch the circling gulls, or view the barely visible peninsula to the SW. But then, amazingly, I noticed something barely sticking above the horizon in the McGregor channel, and I immediately recognized it as a flag mast on top of a chimney on one of the lake freighters. I slowly watched it rise, the whole ship coming into view, until I could see it was coming in my direction. Was it heading for the buoy just off the point from me? Yes, it was!
I have no idea how long it took the ship to make the journey from beyond the horizon to where I was sitting, but it was nothing to just sit there and watch it draw closer. When it reached the buoy a couple of guys on deck waved at me and I waved back. Then I watched this ship make a 30° port side turn and head off towards Perry Sound, the eastern port city on Georgian Bay. Then I repeated the process of watching it sail to the eastern horizon, go out of sight until only the flag pole was showing, then finally disappear.
I wasn't really amazed that my eyes could perceive a flag pole so far away, but realized that we as human creatures were given senses such as this in order to survive in a dangerous world. I also noticed that I had just done something I'd never done before - sit in one place for hours just watching a flag pole come over the horizon and disappear over the next. And it was so memorable I can still recall it so clearly 65 years later.
Following this I would go back to my camp and make lunch. It would be very simple of course, just a few bites of something. But then, amazingly (and this became one of the greatest lessons of my life) I felt like I was given an injection and was forced to fall asleep. When I woke up later - I have no idea how much later - the sun was still high in the sky except for being a little ways further west. I realized that my body had simply taken charge and forced me to take a nap. This I attributed to all the pristine air and separation from all things man-made. And it happened on every one of the eleven days I was out there.
Every day was basically the same - waking up at dawn's early light, the sun poiting out of the sea, watching freighters, exploring the island, and falling asleep after lunch, but the reason I'm writing this page is to describe one more amazing fact that happened at sun down.
After my evening snack and little campfire I'd watch the sun go down. (Note: I never let the campfires burn after dark so as not to confuse a ship coming my way). And when the sun went down I had the same sensation as I did after lunch: again it felt like I was given an injection and was going to sleep whether I liked to or not. Also there was no "waking up in the middle of the night." I would not wake up at all until dawn's early light again, and when I woke it I was wide awake with no "sleep hangover" which I sometimes experienced during my previous 16 years. I was amazed at the power of nature, how it regulated how I went to sleep and how I woke up.
But before I would fall asleep like this, and as the sun grew low in the sky, I would look across the water at the cabin lights coming on at the east end of Dunks Bay. They all came on about the same time, even before the darkness that put me to sleep, and I knew that those lights back on shore (and all over the world) were keeping people awake longer into the night - longer than our species was designed to stay awake. I wondered what effect this had on our bio systems, and if it led to any diseases such as cancer. I wondered if being artificially kept awake by lights contributed to madness or strange behaviour in humans, and I thought of how every other species in the world woke up and went to sleep without having brazen electricity prevent them from doing what is natural. But I had to go to a lonely, isolated island to learn this. I do not know of any other place where I could have learned this information.
In later life I learned I had to live with the lights of course, and I wondered what it did to our bodies. I can't answer that question and I can't speak for other people. Today I wonder about "insomnia" and related topics, and I know that there would be absolutely no chance of having insomnia out there on that island. I worked an entire career living in the phony atmosphere of millions of lights everywhere and anywhere we went, and I always remembered this stunning fact which I learned in my youth:
Once dawn's early light began on Bears Rump Island I woke up, and when the sun went down I went to sleep. No exceptions.
Thanks for reading.
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