Boblo Island – July 1920

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• "It’s a 110 acre island with a bunch of canals going through it."

  Sounds dreadful -- pave it over.

  An easier way for people to get to the island as is would be nice though. It's a short canoe ride, but the Detroit River is fairly strong so (somebody who has done this correct me if wrong) it would take some skill to navigate over.

  The TO islands here benefit from a huge population who don't have cottages but who need some city-escape now and then. In Windsor I always felt because it was a smaller city and proximity to the rural hinterland was often a bike ride away, the need for cottage-esque gettaway's was less. So would people pay for a ferry trip when they could drive to Point Pelee? Or would they pay more than once, after the novelty wore off, to make it economically viable?

• I went over to Boblo Island about a year ago for a service call. It's definitely a gated community...with no gates. You can't just go over there to look around. I was only able to access the housing developments. The houses there are very boring to look at...I wasn't impressed. It looks like your typical cookie-cutter subdivision, except the houses are larger in size. I was expecting a LOT more.

• Thanks so much for the BB Island posting,especially with the B+W period shots.
  I once visited Peche Isle by kayak, and travelled to the island with the guidance of an experienced kayaker on a completely calm day. It would be nice if the public could travel by public transit, but I think it's best left alone, to keep trash left by visitors ruininng what's left of the sort of "wild" state it is in now,

• We went to the island last summer. We told them we were going to the restaurant, paid $5 to cross (round trip), then proceeded to drive around the island and check things out. No one said a word to us. It was very sad to see how overgrown and unkempt the old amusement park area has become. I long for the old days...

• The old Dance Hall on Bob-Lo Island was not built by Henry Ford nor was Albert Kahn the architect. Kahn was one of two people who vied for the position, but it was John Scott who was awarded the contact and built the largest dance pavilion in North America in 1913.

  As for Peche Island, there has been several attempts to do something with the island, but all have failed. It is said that Rosalie Laforest got down on her knees and cursed the Walkers and the island when forced to leave her home by Hiriam Walker's men in 1883 wailing, “No one will ever do anything with the island!”