Village Squire, 1976-08, Page 5fo)
In the late 1800's people began to recognize Bayfield as a good
place to spend a quiet summer holiday. It's still quiet today
despite the fact thousands come every year.
That touch of class
No matter how hectic other
resort towns may get,
Bayfield refuses to lose its
leisurely pace
A forest of masts has sprouted along the waterfront in Bayfield in
recent years as millions of dollars worth of yachts make the
village their home port.
There's something about Bayfield, a very
vague, indefinable something that sets the
little village on the edge of Lake Huron aside
from nearly every other village in Ontario.
Many people have tried to capture the
essense of that difference but few have been
successful.
The thing people talk about most in the
village is the sense of time being somehow
unimportant, that time is measured here not
in seconds, minutes or even hours, but in
days and weeks and years or perhaps
seasons would be a better way.
Bayfield is very much a seasonal town now.
The summer is the big season with thousands
of people flock to soak up that feeling we were
talking about. Bayfield's main economic
stimulus is tourism yet it refuses to act like a
tourist town. While Grand Bend goes from a
quiet winter snore to a giant summer roar,
Bayfield barely changes its pace from winter
to summer. There may be more people
buying in stores and creating business, but
the,tourists know that in Bayfield you don't
act like a typical tourist is supposed to act In
fact they aren't even called tourists by most
VILLAGE SQUIRE/AUGUST 1976, 3