Port Severn waterfront undergoing major redevelopment - village that time forgot turning itself into upscale resort
LOCK 45 at Port Severn is the smallest lock on the Trent-Severn Waterway. Its 25.6-metre length limits the size of vessel that can through-navigate the entire waterway, which stretches for 386 kilometres along central Ontario. Lock 45 is the waterway’s northern gateway.
FRENCH-CANADIAN bush workers first settled in Port Severn in the late 1870s, many of them choosing to live apart from the Anglophones who ran the lumber town. They squatted on waterfront land northwest of the village, at Pointe aux Pins, so named for its thick forest of pine trees. When the land was added to land grants made available by the government as incentive for settlement, most of the squatters decided to earn title to their land by clearing it and building a house.
ON APRIL 17, 1997, a fire destroyed most of the downtown section of MacTier, located about 40 kilometres north Port Severn in the Muskoka end of the Township of Georgian Bay. A themed shopping centre has now risen from the ashes in the village originally on the maps as Muskoka Station. The CPR pushed rail lines through west Muskoka in 1906.
Port Severn, located at Lock 45 of the Trent-Severn Waterway, the final lock before entering Georgian Bay, is about to undergo a major transformation.
Bisected by Highway 400, the village has the distinction of being located in both the District of Muskoka and in Simcoe County, the gateway to Georgian Bay cottage country. In fact, Port Severn straddles two municipal borders: it is part of the Township of Severn east of the locks and part of the Township of Georgian Bay west of the locks.
In Severn, a large rural township that stretches across to Lake Couchiching to the east, Port Severn joins the urban settlements of Coldwater and Washago as the main urban centres. In Georgian Bay, a small township whose northern border is crossed by the waterways of the Muskoka River watershed and whose southern boundary is formed by the Severn River watershed, Port Severn joins Honey Harbour and MacTier as the urban centres.
Too many years with a split personality
Up until 2005, when the Township of Georgian Bay published its Port Severn Strategic Plan, the little village with a split personality was not much more than the place where cars drove by on their way to Honey Harbour — about 10 kilometres away and the jumping off point to 30,000 Islands cottage country and tours to Georgian Bay Islands National Park — and boaters passed through the locks.
The landscape here was dominated by commercial enterprises catering to the servicing of boats using the Trent-Severn Waterway and cottagers heading to Georgian Bay or the Gloucester Pool to the north — home to the historic Severn Lodge.
There were few single-family homes here, with the largest concentration of residents — about 350 — found in a private seasonal trailer camp. The full-time population was tiny, a far cry from the village’s heydey as a thriving “company town,” when the population in 1885 was about 500, thanks to the Georgian Bay Lumber Co.
And little wonder. With no library, no medical facilities, no bank and no village core where people could go to shop and to chat with neighbours over a cup of coffee, there hasn’t been much to keep people in Port Severn year-round, though everything a person could need or want can be found within a 60-kilometre radius via Highway 400 to Barrie and the Greater Toronto Area, and via Highway 12 to Orillia and Casino Rama.
Lock 45 helped launch tourist trade
Port Severn never did recover the population lost in 1886, when lightning struck the mill-house and started a fire that burned it to water level. Also destroyed were a tug, the company store and a warehouse. With the timber almost all cleared out of the area, the fire served as the trigger that would end the lumber business here, with most residents moving south to jobs in Waubaushene.
It wasn’t until tourists began to arrive in larger number in the 1920s — Lock 45 was opened in 1915 — that the local economy started to pick up. But Port Severn, despite its fully serviced land ready for development, seemed destined to remain a summer place.
Until now.
The strategic plan drafted by the Township of Georgian Bay in 2005, which envisioned the development of Port Severn as a thriving community — complete with a charming village square with a mix of boutiques, restaurants and entertainment venues and a population of 3,200 full-time residents, mushrooming to 10,000 during the summer — is beginning to turn into a reality.
Major residential development in the works
The first big residential development — 475 detached homes complete with 18-hole golf course, marina and boathouse community centre — is under construction at the south end of the township, on Oak Bay near Lock 45. A 22-unit condo building is also under construction. And plans are in the works for at least two other large developments, one north of Oak Bay and the other on the east side of the river, that will add more than 700 more residential units to Port Severn, including at least 10 low-rise condo buildings.
Because the Township of Georgian Bay has identified access to the waterfront and a network of trails as an important part of the overall plan for the development of Port Severn, the new developments will be required to set aside land for public access to what is now mostly privately owned waterfront. Through park dedication from development, the township is already beginning to establish a network of trails in the south end, which will be under the municipality’s control and lead eventually into a more extensive system of walking and cycling paths through the community.
The township also recently acquired waterfront land for development as a park. Eventually, the township, whose entire population in 2006 was 2,340, would like to see municipal docks and free public beach and boat launch developed in Port Severn, where not even the views are free — a stop for a visit to the beautiful park at the lock requires paid parking.
What’s unique about Port Severn is that it is virtually a blank slate — the fast-food joints and the strip malls have yet to move in. Now, thanks to the township’s plan for the village’s development, what should result will be a planned community that has all the services to sustain a year-round population, while providing the facilities and the ambience that tourists demand.
Environmental wonders abound
The protection and promotion of Port Severn’s natural and cultural heritage (the village was predominantly French-Canadian from about 1920 until 1960) and the establishment of a gateway tourism centre are also part of the township’s tourism strategy for the village.
Severn Sound is recognized as environmentally significant due to its shallow waters, perfect for fish nesting and spawning, while the shoreline areas surrounding Potato Island are identified as a provincially significant wetland.
Port Severn’s most important geological feature is found in the centre of the community. Known as an outlier, the limestone rock formation amid the granite bedrock is being investigated as a potentially significant snake nesting area.
Beausoleil Island, one of the most visited of the nearby islands that form the Georgian Bay Islands National Park, is home to the eastern massasauga rattlesnake, an endangered species that is the only snake in Ontario whose venom is poisonous and potentially dangerous.
The park’s islands, which can be found from Honey Harbour to Twelve Mile Bay and are accessible only by boat, are home to both northern and southern species of plants and animals. The islands’ rugged Canadian Shield landscape has been the inspiration for many a Group of Seven painting. Stop by the Parks Canada Welcome Centre at Lock 45 for a reservation before you head to Honey Harbour to catch the boat.
Marine and rail history meet at Lock 44
Another site worth visiting in the area is Lock 44 on the Trent-Severn Waterway, northeast of Port Severn. It’s home to the Big Chute Marine Railway, the only one of its kind in North America. You can watch the giant railway carriage — it fits boats up to 100 feet long — carry boats over the land barrier at Big Chute on the Severn River. The old 1923 carriage, no longer in use, is on display. While you’re there, take a self-guided tour of the old and new Big Chute hydro generating stations. There’s also a gift shop and large area for picnics and boater camping.
You can take a cruise to the Big Chute Marine Railway aboard the Serendipity Princess departing from Port Severn. Big Chute is included on Midland Tours’ 2.5- hour Fall Colour Muskoka-Trent-Severn Waterway cruises in late September and early October.
If you’re out for a shorter boat ride, be sure to head just north of Port Severn to Gloucester Pool, where you will see cottages worthy of the pages of
Better Homes & Gardens. Stop off at the O’Hare Point Marine Park, where you’ll find a bakery and an antique outboard exhibit at the marina.
Just north of the marina is Severn Lodge — you’ll recognize it by its red roof — one of the old-style resorts that sprang up in cottage country when steamboat travel opened the area to rich tourists. In the mid-1800s, the main lodge building served as one of the headquarters for the Georgian Bay Lumber Company.
Grab land while you can
On the local real estate front, several properties within walking distance of the water near the new golf course and marina development — some as large as three acres with a small cottage-style house in the middle — are being marketed as development opportunities, starting at $249,000.
Recently listed waterfront property in Port Severn included a three-year-old three-bedroom bi-level within walking distance of Georgian Bay for $249,900. An older three-bedroom, three-bath chalet-style home right on the water was listed for $349,900 — complete with 205 feet of water frontage, a dock and beach access. At the high end of the budget, $1,750,000 will buy you an executive 4,176-square-foot home on the southwestern tip of Port Severn, with fabulous panoramic views of Georgian Bay, docks and swimming area.