By James Matthews

The name Kashagawigamog is an Anishinaabeg word that means lake of long and winding waters.

For many people, Wigamog is a word that conjures memories of long and winding childhood summers on Kashagawigamog Lake in Haliburton.

The Wigamog Resort sits on about 43 acres of prime lakefront property, real estate pegged as recently as 2022 as possibly being worth as much as $5 million.

That’s a small sum compared to the feelings stoked in people who can look back on easy summers at the place.

For many people with childhood memories or later summer romances, recollections of boreal sojourns for other reasons, the Haliburton refuge means more than dollars.

Kashagawigamog Lake inn’s doors opened in 1903 as a boarding house. Owners Robert and Anne Gould provided lodgings for boarders for $3 a week.

The property was sold in 1917 and work began to convert it into an inn that opened in 1922.

It was expanded again near the end of the 1960s before it was sold in 1993.

It was shut down in 2011.

Five years passed before it was bought by the current owners, the Aurora Group.

Little has been done at the property in the years since except for some windows having been boarded up and entranced chained closed. There were reports of a possible residential development at the site.

It’s main building, conference building, and outer cabins have since become shells.

It was previously reported that the Aurora Group had until July 2022 to board all windows and entrances as a measure to prevent trespassers and vandals. That was the municipality’s response to safety concerns about the property.

Provincial and Dysart officials were concerned about a possible environmental contaminants at the property. That concern was raised as a result of a site environmental inspection by the Ministry of Environment, Conservation, and Parks.

Attention has been paid to the safe containment and removal of asbestos, black mold, and any number of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)–those other persistent reminders of years gone by that are difficult to destroy and won’t easily break down on their own.

Brows were also creased in worry for the present endangered species of birds, bats and turtles and snakes.

The stately main building is an island within vegetation. It’s pool reduced a yawning maw.

Many photos exist of the resort in picture albums and newspaper clippings held onto by the hundreds of regular and occasional seasonal visitors to the property. Other curious images of the Wigamog Inn can be found online as if digital jetsam washed onto the Kashagawigamog’s shore.

Pictured inside during a four-year-old YouTube video, art still hangs on the walls. Furniture remains arranged in some rooms. Some of the walls are like a sprawling Rorschach test in the designs made by how peeling white paint and the colours beneath contrast on some walls and ceilings.

Broken glass piled with books, board games.

Indeed, the lonely main lodge has lured a number of photographers and videographers who pique online traffic by exploring abandoned properties throughout North America. One such video from 2018 can be found on YouTube on the Freaktography channel.

Another such urban explorer is Riddim Ryder who posted video in 2020.

The 27-minute tour of the abandoned facility has brought down avenues of memory viewers who can see the resort through the lack mold, the dust, and the detritus of neglect.

As an update, another urban explorer said that as of 2023 the ceilings in some rooms have collapsed onto floors. Recreational items and some furniture have been removed. Stairs to a lower-level indoor swimming pool were decrepit and too dangerous to venture down.

One viewer, identified as SandraLily2, is saddened by the state of the inn as shown in the video.

“I spent a wonderful week here with my family back in the ‘70s,” SandtraLily2 wrote. “It was such fun! They had activities all day long for the kids so the grownups could enjoy themselves without feeling guilty.

“We stayed in one of the cabins towards the end in the back. Thanks so much for posting. I shed a tear for days gone by and beautiful memories.”

At least one former employee remembers the resort as it was in the mid-1980s. Commenter Philpappin1691 wrote about a federal Progressive Conservative Party convention at the place with Brian Mulroney before he was prime minister.

Recording labels would bring the popular Canadian bands of the day to put off live concerts at the property.

“Such great memories. Unfortunate, sad ending.”

Commenter JasmineCA87 said she worked in a nursery at the Wigamog and as a kids’ camp counsellor there to older children.

Another viewer also once worked there. As a patron, commenter Harborgirlasmr would boat up to the resort and get a bite at the Moose Bar and Grill.

“So sad to see it in that condition,” she said.

Commenter Luckystripe77 said some of the resort’s neglect can be attributed to changes in how people vacation. Haliburton County visitors in recent years have taken to renting cottages. And that’s had a toll on a number of resorts that once operated along the shoreline.

“This one (the Wigamog Inn) was the last to close down,” he said.