A Trip down a Sideroad

Bondi Bay, 1929 - note the log jam in the corner of
the bay and the open pastures behind!

Our little Blog gets read in a lot of unlikely places -- which is just fine with us. We have some very loyal readers (oh dearly beloved!!!) and some who just click in, read, click out...  

One of our readers is Sarah Ryeland, of Sideroads of Muskoka magazine. Sarah is also an avid fan of Napster's, and in fact painted with him for an article in an earlier edition of the magazine.  She noticed a couple of posts on the Blog this fall -- one about Vikings, one about Names...

Passing them along to Gillian Brunette, she got the ball rolling. Came out to the Resort. Got some old historic photos to go with the article...

The result is a fun feature in the Winter 2011 Sideroads of Muskoka,  all about Buried Treasure.  Now -- we hasten to point out -- it is completely unknown if a) the Vikings really did get to Lake of Bays; and b) where the treasure might be buried.  Gillian likes to place it in our bay, Bondi Bay.

Given the geography of the lake, this seems to us unlikely -- somewhere between the portage into Dwight Bay and the exiting river at Baysville seem more along the probability curve.  That said, we're all for  giving this old-fashioned geocaching a try -- let's go treasure hunting!! Why not!?

Original farmhouse at Bondi, 1905 -- Joseph and Elizabeth
Tapley, with their two young sons Douglas and Percy,
and Mr. McIlwaine. They would have been delighted to find
Viking silver on the land!

From what we've been told, this bay was considered a place of healing by the First Nations.  With it's southwest face, shallow bay, deposits of clay and open beach, it was an ideal location for a spring camp, a place to soak up some long-awaited sunshine after a long winter.  Come to that, it still is. And that could well be the Real Treasure of Bondi Bay.