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Huntsville is a jewel in the Canadian Shield, and within Huntsville, Fairy Lake is the heart and soul. Its beauty and magic continue to amaze me after nearly 40 years on the lake. |
Within driving proximity to 5 million people, it yet remains clean with breathtaking shorelines. Affording opportunity for all manner of summer and winter recreation, our lake lifestyle is a fine example of Canadian living at its best. Fairy Lake Association seeks to ensure that our lake remains a community treasure for generations to come. Many towns and cities have managed waterways with good intention for the well-being of their citizenry, yet these became polluted, un-swimmable and undesirable. The buck stops here at the 45th parallel. We want our lake to remain clean, the shoreline to be natural. I believe by working together we can ensure this. I’m sure we all have fond recollections connected to the lake. My heart leaps with memories of sailing its waters; skating kilometers at a stretch; swimming, standing on its sandy bottom, enveloped in its purifying life; walking or skiing its frozen winter-state to one tree-island, blue sky, children bundled up so that –20C feels warm; relaxing on the dock with a good book; and perhaps best of all, doing nothing at all….being with nature. All this and more in a single year at one place – Fairy Lake We do not want to be a part of damaging this natural treasure, but rather of providing a continuing example of how to live in harmony with our fragile resources. The past policy and direction of FLA has been managed through extraordinary efforts by a few who devoted much of their life through those years to pursue improvement to our environment. It takes committed voices and actions to make a difference. Be an Al Gore. This is your lake. We are an organization of hundreds of members, grateful for our mutual support, and especially grateful to the dozens who find priority in giving their time to the effort of maintaining what we all see - Beauty; What we experience - Pleasure; What we want for our children’s children, an opportunity to sense externally that which is internal…. and eternal. Activities that FLA volunteers undertake to maintain our lake lifestyle include: water quality testing; planning and development review with the town; annual lake cleanup; navigation and safety regulation; representation to the Huntsville Lakes Council and the town’s Environmental Advisory Committee; website development and maintenance; annual pancake breakfast; and this newsletter. Your directors, elected at the Annual General Meeting meet periodically to manage these initiatives and discuss new ways to maintain and improve quality of life for us all. You are welcome to join us. The task is difficult. For a century and a half, our forbears sought survival often at the expense of the environment, which was unaccounted in awareness and calculation. This culture is changing very slowly, but changing it is. With concerted efforts we can continue to experience aspects of Tom Thompson’s inspiration, Glenn Gould’s ‘Idea of North’ for years to come. We propose the following principles for Fairy Lake within Huntsville:
To SUSTAINABLE economic development we say “YES!” Shoreline development within the Lake Plan and Official Plan we support. Minor variances are just that. But great care must be taken to ensure that lake and environmental degradation do not occur during our sojourn. Take action for Fairy Lake! It’s never been more important than now. When your great grand-children ask you what you did when the lake was threatened by water pollution, motor traffic or over-development, what will you tell them? Come out to a meeting. Call us with ideas and concerns for action. Speak to your town councilor. Let the mayor know how you feel! | |
