the cottages at shoal bay

shoal bay is located on the northern shore of east thurlow island. we have three beautiful rental cabins and a community pub that operates during the summer months serving locally brewed craft ales and wine. a picturesque organic vegetable and flower garden is available for your enjoyment and there are laundry and showers for the visitors in a separate stand alone cottage. the dock is a government of canada dock and we collect overnight moorage here on behalf of the dept of fisheries and oceans. the rate is $1 per foot. 

there is amazingly beautiful handmade pottery available for purchase from the studio of resident artist cynthia macdonald. 

shoal bay is directly adjacent to one of the finest trophy salmon fishing areas in the world. the very best of local proffesional fishing guides are available by appointmen and will pick you up at our docks and provide you with an experience of a lifetime. all licensing, tackle, and even weather gear provided.

shoal bay is very dog friendly and visitors to the docks as well as cottage guests are welcome to bring their dogs along as long as they behave well with others. we make this request of all species.

we bought the shoal bay property in 2000 and started what I thought would be a “resort” business, whatever the hell that is.  

the original lodge building, consisted of 14 guest rooms, each with full bathroom, a commercial kitchen, and a pub room. A cool building but admittedly a bit run down. It took us months and months to barge all of our worldly belongings, boxes and boxes of crap, clothes, computers, tools, books, books, books, electronics, and oh yea, did i mention all of the books,..... all the way up here and then hauling the whole “kit and caboodle” up the dock and into the lodge. Within a week or so of finishing, the place caught fire and burned to the ground.  

i realized that the only underwear that i owned were the ones i was wearing,...... and they had recently become somewhat soiled.  

turns out we didn’t need any of that stuff anyway.  

myself and my many helpers in this joyous insanity, have made wonderful progress here, we have built two cottages, rebuilt a laundry room, constructed a generator shed/workshop, put in a veggie garden as well as a micro-hydro system.  

barely scratched the surface. We have a new fresh-water system to put in, three small cabins, another cottage, a community center/pub to build, as well as gardens to expand.......... a small lumber mill?......... bees?......... goats?............ a sauna?...........a treehouse?.......an art gallery?........ it goes on and on,.... boggles the mind really.  

i am mark and i can take credit for starting all of this but little else. I am joined by my wonderful, creative partner in life, Cynthia. however, we have certainly not been alone in this craziness. during the summer months countless generous souls come and lend a hand with endless projects and chores, building, clearing, ploughing, and laughing with us. I do not believe now that we could live here without them all, they have become a major part of the joy. I hope that some of that joy is carried home with them wherever they may travel.

we are planning to start spring cleaning, planting, and all other forms of work around the beginning of April. We intend on having a couple of wwoofers, hopefully as wonderful as Simone and Sam, Nicholas and Nick, Luke and Jodie, Julie and Julien, and all of the others before and after who have been so amazing. We always need helping hands with the vegetable planting, clearing, building and all the rest so we happily invite anyone who is interested in getting a little dirt under their fingernails to come and join in.  

we hope to construct a new timberframe roof system over our wood-fired oven and deck. there are lawns to constantly mow, salmonberries to clear, trails to clean, a garden to plant and weed, and fish to catch!  

every spring firewood is the main focus. our wood stoves keep us warm, cozy, and dry through the wet winter and in the spring the woodsheds desperately need refilling. it is a big job and more th we can handle on our own. helpers come and we form a team cutting, stripping, bucking, splitting, and stacking the wood for the next winter. we appreceate your help. we couldn't do it without you.  

So i invite you to come, spend some time here and pitch in. special skills though appreciated, are not necessary. ignorance, not only tolerated, seems to be embraced here.  your help of any kind is appreciated. you would need to be laid back, tolerant, creative, embrace a simple life style, enjoy getting your hands dirty, be organic, value nature, be comfortable with cold beer and red wine, no guns, no raised voices, love music, dance, most of all willing to make a difference in your life by removing yourself from the rat-race to a place where there are no honking cars but a sky full of stars at night, and be amongst beautiful peaceful people like yourself  

If you believe that you have something to offer then i invite you to come to shoal bay  for 2 or 3 weeks and see what you think of it. contact us and we will talk first and then get you out here. we are still building accommodation but you will not be out in the cold, quite the opposite. We have loads and loads of work to do and can use all of the help that we can get.