Spider Bay

Spider Bay is a real place.  You can find it on a map, a dozen or so miles west of Parry Sound in Ontario’s Georgian Bay.  But Spider Bay is also a state of mind.  Most of the year, the cottages on the small islands and inlets that make up Spider Bay stand empty, and nature has its way.  The decks are empty and covered with leaves, deck furniture and boats are stored, animals roam the now less-manicured grounds, and maybe even the fish know there’s not a hook for a hundred miles.

But for a dozen or more long weekends every summer, this place comes to life, a very special life, and for the lucky few privileged to know it, the anticipation of forty or fifty days a year can make the most horrid February day tolerable.  It is a perfect place for young and old alike, where the grownups can relax and remember and the children can form perfect memories to last a lifetime.

I’ve taken thousands of photographs at Spider Bay over the past two decades.  Many of them are simply family snapshots, but a few transcend this genre and these are among my favorites.