How it started (and how it’s going)
This is my paternal granddaddy on the beach he bought in 1922 with his friends Doc Read and Ott McNott senior. Doc was a dentist and Ott (if memory serves me) worked with Granddaddy at the 1st National Bank. Granddaddy started out as a “messenger boy” (if memory serves) and ended up as president. I don’t really remember Ott although I vaguely remember his wife so not sure where he ended up in the bank hierarchy. I’m pretty sure granddaddy didn’t graduate from high school but he managed to send all of his kids to college.
Those once “young punks” lived in Sault Ste. Siberia and they would walk and canoe out to this area. If I get it right, the land I now call the moominbeach was clear cut (big pine trees) in the late 1800s and came up for sale while these youngsters were roaming it. So they bought it! I’m pretty sure that back in those days, they didn’t have to be billionaires to get a hold of this land.
Each one of these guys had a log cabin built and they brought their families out for summers. And then the grandchildren came along. One of my earliest memories is when I was five months old. I was lying down in the back seat of the Black Ford (no car seats then) and when we turned onto what is now Birch Point Loop, I could hear the wind susurrating through the pine trees. I was a baby but I somehow knew I was going to a good place.
How’s it going? For my fam and the McNotts it’s going fantastically well. The Read fam did not reproduce beyond their son Lewie. Even though most of us are not “Warren Buffet”, we have still managed to own this gorgeous property 100 plus years later. Not everyone in the area has been able to do that and I grew up with people whose parents or grandparents had to sell their lakefront property. Very sad.
A couple things about the pic. The trees on the moominbeach were much shorter than they are now. And my granddaddy had a beard, which makes me think this was taken in 1955, because that’s the year of the Soo Locks centennial and everyone grew beards that year.
Thank you Granddaddy, Doc, and Otto for buying this land. Thank you for keeping our two-track road private via a court case back in the day.
July 23rd, 2026 at 11:10 pm
The cabin and going to it are part of your identity and your family’s history. It would be such a shame not to have it. The best part is that the younger generation seems attached to it also. That’s sometimes what breaks apart a family property. I like Granddaddy’s beard!