The journey to restore pinewood

Read OHPS Past President Terry Clark’s article on the journey to restore Pinewood here. His article was also published in the 2019 Pointe au Baril Yearbook.

PineWood

The earliest Ojibway Hotel cabins are ones we routinely pass on the island: Basswood, Elmwood, Birchwood, Maplewood and Oakwood. There was another cabin that many of us may have never noticed. Tucked away in the woods, past the gas docks, Oakwood, along the path to the back beach, has stood a solitary stone chimney. A ruin? A ghostly apparition? It is the site of Pinewood, one of the Ojibway’s oldest cabins.

Pinewood was built sometime between 1905 and 1920 by Bert Bruckland.  Bruckland arrived from Parry Sound on the steamer with the first load of lumber in 1905, and became an essential right-hand man to the hotel’s proprietor Hamilton Davis. His daughter Edie Bruckland recalled that “Dad built [Pinewood] with a boy”. We believe Hamilton Davis, was its first occupant. Later, Bruckland himself moved in with his family. After Bert retired, Albert Desmasdon, who ran the ‘boat works’ at the east end of the dock, stayed there with his family. Albert oversaw engine repairs, canoe rentals, and organized guides for fishing expeditions. His son, Stan Desmasdon, remembers his family living in Pinewood from 1944 to 1965, after which Albert went off island to establish Desmasdon’s Boat Works in The Station.

Pinewood was then rented to guests, including the family of Patsy Kernaghan Lord, who remembers as a seven-year old girl having her own bedroom! Her brothers and parents had to share the other two bedrooms.

In the 1960’s, 2 decades after the hotel had been bought by cottagers, many of the buildings were starting to show their age. At one point, The Ojibway Club board even considered demolishing the main hotel building. “While the hotel is a landmark loved by many of us, it is of no practical value now or in the future.” Fortunately for all of us, no action was taken. But eventually an ongoing effort to simplify operations meant a decision was made to demolish a derelict Pinewood cabin. (Basswood was also considered for demolition.) The maintenance team of Tom Cavers, Brad Dean and Bruce Tiffin remember tearing it down in 1994 or 95. Thankfully, they ensured the stone chimney remained standing.

In 2018, a family that had been renting Birchwood expressed interest in supporting the rebuild of Pinewood. They funded the entire reconstruction, with the understanding that several weeks in Pinewood each summer was theirs at market rental. The Ojibway Club will rent it out to others for the remaining weeks.

Scott Weir and Lyndsey Snedden of ERA, the heritage architectural firm that consulted with the Ojibway on the hotel restoration, oversaw the design of Pinewood. Although there was no photo, Scott and Lyndsey found the old footings on the site, learned details from former occupants and from the research done for At The Ojibway, our centenary book. They ensured the new construction was consistent with the style of the other cabins built in the same period on Ojibway Island. 

Enormous thanks to Terry Clark, John O’Connell, Bill Watts, Nancy Lang, Stacey Sharpe, Scott Weir, Lyndsey Sneddon, Ballentine Construction and of course the family that led the charge, to bring Pinewood back to life.