ANYBODY WITHOUT THE MEANS TO OWN OR LUCK TO INHERIT A COTTAGE OR SUMMER PLACE probably knows about towns like Port Elgin, on the shores of Lake Huron on the edge of Ontario’s farm belt. While not strictly a summer town – that’s a better description of Sauble Beach, up the shore from Port Elgin – it’s the sort of place you can rent a room or a whole cottage by the week, to enjoy a hard-earned break from the city by the water.
I ended up in Port Elgin by chance – an old friend living outside nearby Paisley was having a landmark birthday, and Port Elgin was the closest place to stay a couple of nights after making my way there from the city by bus. It was also my first trip anywhere in almost a year, and it seemed like a good excuse to bring something to this blog again – not strictly a travel story as much as a document of a place where people travel, glimpsed quickly over a windy, hectic weekend.
The town was settled in the middle of the 19th century near a small natural harbour, and incorporated in 1873 when the Wellington, Grey and Bruce Railway line arrived. Tourism started becoming a big deal at the start of the 20th century, and the harbour was updated for pleasure craft and a breakwater constructed. In 1998 Port Elgin was amalgamated with nearby Southampton and Saugeen Township to become the Town of Saugeen Shores.
The weekend is blustery while I’m there, with waves cresting over the breakwater and kite surfers circling each other off the beach. The marina is full but I have the beach and the boardwalk mostly to myself just after sunrise. It’s a late summer weekend and the clouds are low and heavy – it won’t stay this way all weekend, but it makes for some dramatic photos.
The town has maximized the potential of the beach, breakwater and marina, with plenty of public facilities to compliment what the local hospitality industry has built. There are canoe and kayak rentals and even a fish cleaning station for anglers. In addition to the town’s Main Beach there are five other beaches along the shoreline between MacGregor Point Provincial Park to the south and Miramichi Bay to the north.
There are plenty of places to stay in town, from the motels along Goderich Street, Port Elgin’s main drag, to the vacation cottages and bed and breakfasts that fill the leafy blocks between Goderich and the Main Beach. There’s a municipal tourist camp and cottage parks of every size in this part of town, but you’ll find accommodations in every price range all over Port Elgin. My own billet for the weekend, halfway between a hotel and a bed and breakfast, is quaintly dated but clean and quiet, and includes free wi-fi and an austere but much-appreciated continental breakfast.
But Port Elgin isn’t a summer town – there are plenty of year-round residents, employed in local industries like agriculture and Bruce Power, the electrical generator that operates the nuclear power plant in nearby Kincardine. (There are also wind turbines all across Bruce County, operated by companies like Huron Wind.) Houses range from wood frame cottages to log cabins to mid-century ranch houses to Victorians in the area’s signature cream brick, laid out on the town’s shady, tree-lined streets.
Goderich Street is where you’ll find most of the shopping and restaurants, not all of them geared to the summer tourist trade, in addition to the banks and supermarkets you’ll need if you stay for a week or more. Dining ranges from a few chains and fast food to sushi, Chinese, fine dining, pubs and vegan-friendly options, and Three Sheets, a craft brewery. I had an excellent brunch at To The Moon bakery and cafe, and a leisurely coffee break at Rabbit Dash Coffee House, which also does duty as a local social hub and record store.
But my whole reason for being in Bruce Country was a birthday party at the century farm house of a friend living just outside Paisley, inland from Port Elgin on the Saugeen River. This is farm country – the fields were full of corn and soy when I was there – with a steady wind coming across the fields from Lake Huron turning the wind turbines that fringe the horizon.
If you have time it’s worth driving along the roads of Bruce County to visit nearby towns like Paisley, Walkerton, Kincardine, Tiverton, Mildmay, Ripley, Wiarton and Tobermory. Each one is different, and the roads in between them are full of opportunities for shooting landscapes, with clear views over the fields of huge skies like this one, glimpsed on the evening of my last night in Bruce County.
I arrived back in Port Elgin for the night to get a shot of the last moments of one of the town’s justifiably famous sunsets over the breakwater, which was full of locals and tourists enjoying the view.
Photos and story © 2023 Rick McGinnis All Rights Reserved
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