Welcome to GORE BAY
Bed and Breakfast located in beautiful Manitoulin Island

Gore Bay is located on the western end of Manitoulin Island, nestled between two beautiful bluffs. Established since 1890, Gore Bay has 900 residents, making it the second largest community on the island.

Gore Bay is located at the apex of a narrow inlet, allowing safe landing for water craft of various sizes. Gore Bay has long been a favorite for sailors because of it's safe harbour and also because of the charm and hospitality offered by the businesses and residents of this quaint village. Gore Bay also offers charter boat rentals for those adventurous sailors looking to explore the wonders of the North Channel.

The landscape surrounding the bay is also a draw; the bluffs are covered in green; the shores and coves filled with incredible natural formations and colourful granite rock. The North Channel is dotted with islands and small coves where travelers can explore by kayak, canoe or sailing vessel.

Both visitors and residents enjoy the good shopping, restaurants and medical services, and the recreational facilities including docks, tennis courts, golf course, beach, park and picnic areas. The fishing is excellent. There is a splake derby in May, and a salmon derby in the summer. Ice-fishing, snowmobiling, and cross-country skiing are popular winter activities. The Rotary Club in February, and the Lions Club in July, are renowned for presenting weekends of family fun.  

 

After the Treaty of 1862, Manitoulin Island was opened for white settlement.  Small towns sprang up out of the bush, and hotels were developed to provide lodgings for prospective land purchasers.  As boats traveling between Sault Ste. Marie, Collingwood and Owen Sound established regular ports of call on Manitoulin, the hotels prospered, due to increased traffic.

Gore Bay, for many years, was served by three hotels: The Atlantic Hotel, The Ocean Hotel, and the third - The Queen's Hotel (as it was known in the early days) is the only one of the three that is still standing today. Since it was built in 1880, the Queen's Hotel has witnessed it's share of Gore Bay history, and has undergone many changes, culminating in it's present day grandeur, after a full restoration was completed in 1998.

Since it first opened it's doors for business in the late nineteenth century, The Queen's has welcomed guests from all walks of life: commercial travelers - who brought goods to the expanding settlements,  lawyers, doctors, fishermen, lumberjacks, and tourists.  The Queen's has long been a prominent fixture in the community of Gore Bay.  The tradition continues.

Manitoulin Island is the world's largest freshwater lake island. With an area of 2,766 km² (1,068 square miles), it is the 174th largest island in the world, and Canada's 31st largest island. Part of Ontario, Canada, the island separates the larger part of Lake Huron to its south and west from Georgian Bay to its east and the North Channel to the north. Manitoulin Island itself has 108 freshwater lakes, some of which have their own islands; in turn a few of these "islands within islands" have their own ponds. Lake Manitou (about 104 km²) is the largest lake in a freshwater island in the world. The island has three rivers, the Kagawong, Manitou, and Mindemoya Rivers, which provide spawning grounds for Atlantic Salmon and trout.

Manitoulin means spirit island in the Ojibwe language. The island was a sacred place for the native Anishinaabe people who were Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi.

The North Channel was part of the route used by the voyageurs to reach Lake Superior. The first known European to settle on the island was Father Joseph Poncet, a French Jesuit, who set up a mission near Wikwemikong in 1648. The Jesuits called the island "Isle de Ste. Marie". Diseases introduced by the visitors had a devastating effect on the island's population. Raids from the south by the Five Nations Iroquois drove the remaining people from the island by 1650. According to oral tradition, the island was burned to purify it as they left and it remained largely unsettled for the next 150 years.

Native people (Odawa, Ojibwe, Potawatomi) began to return to the island following the War of 1812. The island was ceded to the Crown in 1836 and set aside as a refuge for natives. Jean-Baptiste Proulx re-established a Roman Catholic mission in 1838 which the Jesuits took over in 1845. In 1862, the Manitoulin Island treaty opened up the island for settlement by non-native people. The Wikwemikong chief did not accept this treaty and that reserve remains unceded.