We drove into Canada yesterday and lost touch with the rest of North America. Our GPS didn’t work, nor did our cell phone or our hot spot, so I have a couple days worth to report tonight. I’m warning you this might be long because we saw a lot!
Crossing the border into Canada. I had really expected that by the time we got this far north we’d be hitting snow, but the weather was sunny and warm.
We crossed from Niagara Falls, NY into Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.
This was all we could see as we crossed the Rainbow Bridge, but we promised ourselves we’d stop on the way back.
As we got up into the Georgian Bay area, we began seeing lots of beautiful lakes.
Since we had lost our GPS, I was trying to guide us with our trusty road atlas. However, Minett is so small it’s not on the map. We were fortunate to stop at a service station in Muskoka County where they were familiar with Minett but hadn’t heard of Juddhaven. That was okay because it got us close enough to start seeing signs.
We turned onto Juddhaven Road and saw this huge hotel on top of a hill. Little did we know we’d be eating there later.
We arrived on Lake Rosseau (with the emphasis on the first syllable) at dusk.
I knew this sign as soon as I saw it because I have looked at pictures of Juddhaven online.
Why, you may ask, were we so interested in seeing Juddhaven? It’s my ancestral home. My ancestors built it in 1875 and it’s been in the Judd family ever since.
The summer porch dining area
The summer porch sitting area
Mark in front of the “bunky” as they call it. This is where visiting family stay when the guest house is operating in the summer.
However, we were given the best room in the house. Mark rested up a bit after our long drive.
Our room came with its own bathroom
A wardrobe and a bench seat in front of our window
Our bed
After we had unloaded our things in our bedroom, we were offered tea and tarts.
The plate rail in the dining room
Beautiful dishes in the kitchen
A stove Marilyn bought at an antique store. She loves it even though it doesn’t work anymore!
Ken and Marilyn Judd are the proprietors of Juddhaven, which they run as a bed and breakfast. Ken also works several days a week driving a shuttle bus back and forth from North Bay to the Toronto airport. He was to arrive later, so Marilyn told us we could get dinner at the Marriott Hotel down the road.
We seldom ever grace the doors of such a fancy place, so we had to get a selfie there.
The dining area where we ate
Apparently, Muskoka has its own brewery.
After dinner, I went into the women’s restroom which was so fancy they had real towels instead of paper towels to dry one’s hands on. I loved this mirror.
By the time, we returned to Juddhaven, Ken was home. We all sat in the living room and talked for several hours about family history and the history of the homestead.
A painting of my great-great-grandfather, Francis Edmund Judd
Early in its history, the house had also served as a post office and the photo above the original sign is of my great-great-grandmother, Ann, on the front porch with the sign behind her.
Marilyn and Ken Judd were lovely hosts.
The painting above our heads is in a very old photo of the house. I believe Ken said it was painted by a semi-famous Muskoka artist.
So here’s what I learned last night:
My great-great-grandfather and his family of a wife and eight children arrived in Canada from England with a 200-acre land grant. Normally a family would have been given 100 acres, but this land was not thought to be very good so they received twice as much. Tourists began to show up early, and at first my ancestors boarded them in their home, but soon they built a beautiful hotel that proved to be a successful business. A couple of the sons took over the business. Ken’s parents came to visit one summer and Ken and his siblings enjoyed riding their bicycles up and down the porch in front of the hotel until one of them accidentally broke a window. His uncle got mad and at that point, the family was banned from the hotel, so Ken remembers for the rest of that summer and the next, his family camped in a tent on a rock nearby. He and his siblings remember those two summers with fondness.
Ken’s uncles weren’t as good with business as their father and the hotel was eventually sold to the Catholic church as a retreat center for priests. Then a developer bought it with the idea of tearing it down and building subdivisions. The neighbors hated the idea and fought it, but he got the needed paperwork to begin. Unfortunately for him, but fortunately for the neighbors, he and his wife were killed in a car crash and so the subdivision never happened. However, the hotel later burned to the ground.
The family kept the homestead and Ken’s aunt, a spinster, used it kind of as a summer cottage. In later years, a neighbor called Ken and told him his aunt wasn’t doing well. She had Alzheimers. He and Marilyn came into possession of the house twenty-one years ago and they strongly considered tearing it down because it was in horrible condition. His aunt had let it go. One wall of the foundation had caved in. The beams under the floor were sagging and rotting. There were hundreds of bats living in the attic and there were rodent nests everywhere; every time they opened a cupboard or looked behind something. But Ken wanted to try and revive it. It took them ten years with the help of family and friends just to make it liveable. At that point, they decided that the house needed to pay for itself and they began running it as a B&B.
It has come to the point where the house is costing more money than it’s bringing in. Because it is right on Lake Rosseau, the neighborhood has become touristy and very expensive. Taxes on it are exorbitant. And because the house is so old, it still needs a lot of repairs and maintenance. Ken’s children have no interest in taking over and he doesn’t want to burden them with it when he’s gone, so he has had to come to the painful decision to sell it out of the family for the first time since 1875. He has had it on the market this summer (which is why I thought I’d better see it now if I was going to) and he’s had a couple people express some interest who are willing to keep the house. He doesn’t want to sell it to someone who would tear it down to build their dream home or something. One drawback is that the government owns the beach on the other side of the road. He would have an easier time selling it if he owned the beach front.
After talking late into the evening, Mark and I had a wonderful night of sleep. It was so quiet and peaceful there. This morning we luxuriated in a bath. We have a shower in our RV but whenever we get a chance, we like to take a bath. We packed our things and went downstairs to put them in the truck. Marilyn had created an artistically aesthetic breakfast for us.
Fruit cups with mint from the lakeside for starters. Then we had eggs and ham and potato slices, and toast with crabapple jam Marilyn made from the crabapple tree in the yard. She told us she also makes maple syrup from the maple trees, but it’s like gold. It takes forty pounds of maple sap to make one pound of syrup!
At breakfast, Ken and Marilyn were asking us about what we do. Ken loves to travel (having once driven tour buses throughout the US and Canada). Marilyn loves running a B&B, but she’d like to travel some if she could do quilting as well. (A fellow quilter!) We suggested that perhaps they could get an RV and Workamp at B&B’s or hotels that need extra help. Marilyn lit up. We began discussing all the possibilities that might open up for them if they had an RV and it was the first time she had thought of this option. I believe the world opened up for her this morning!
I took some last pictures around the house.
Marilyn said she had used some inheritance money to buy this yard swing.
This would be a nice, shady spot to view the lake on a hot summer day.
A house boat…
…and a boathouse on the lake.
Juddhaven with a for sale sign in front
This was the first time I’d met these relatives, but I love them already! The poppy on my jacket is a gift from Marilyn for Remembrance Day (the Canadian version of Veteran’s Day). Their dog, Abigail, was supposed to be banned to the back part of the house, and you can see that she knows she’s being naughty, but she came to see us off too!
Ken and Marilyn waving to us as we drove away.
It was sad to leave, but we had Niagara Falls ahead of us.
From this direction, Mark and I got a better view of Toronto and realized how huge it is!
We had noticed these interesting light posts on the way to Minett, and this time I got a picture of them.
This was our first real view of Lake Ontario.
We had hoped to make it all the way back to the US on one tank of gas (which we’d gotten before we left the US), and we came oh, so close, but had to stop. When I went in a man handed me a coupon and said I got a customer appreciation gift which I would find inside. He gave me a sample of lipstick and tried desperately to sell me some makeup. Mark rescued me, but I put the lipstick on and took a selfie in the truck.
Ken, you were right! This old boat was closer to the border.
Right before the border crossing we turned right toward Niagara Falls on the Canadian side.
Prime real estate overlooking the falls.
All I can say is, “Wow!”
Proof positive that we were at Niagara Falls
Rather than crossing the border at Niagara Falls, we went south to enter through Buffalo, NY so we could say we had seen both Lake Ontario and Lake Erie.
Crossing back into the states. The US border patrol was easier on us than the Canadian border patrol had been. One of the other officers even walked over to ask what part of Texas we’re from (because our truck has Texas license plates).
Entering Buffalo, NY
Sunset over Lake Erie
Buffalo, NY
“artistically aesthetic breakfast” is an understatement! Marilyn is a fantastic cook! The ham she cook for us was seasoned in a way I’d never had before, it was delicious!!! Crabapple jam and warn buttered toast, it was soooo good!!! Thanks again Marilyn, we’ll plan better next time…..