Wasaga Beach
Wasaga Beach is a town in Simcoe County, Ontario, Canada. Situated along the longest freshwater beach in the world, it is a popular summer tourist destination. It is located at the southern end of Nottawasaga Bay approximately north of Toronto and about northwest of Barrie. To the west, Collingwood and The Blue Mountains also attract visitors much of the year. The town is situated along a very long sandy beach partly between the bay and the Nottawasaga River. The beaches are part of [|Wasaga Beach Provincial Park]; the park area totals. Wasaga Beach has a year-round population of 24,862 as of 2021, but during the summer months the population increases with many seasonal residents.
The economy has struggled for some years, particularly since a major fire in late November 2007 destroyed many of the stores. It depends on tourists in an area where the primary shopping season is three to four months per year. In March 2017, the town passed its Downtown Development Master Plan, a 20-year strategy for significant redevelopment of the tourist area and adding a downtown to the business area. The goal is to improve tourism, diversify the economy, and get beyond its "party town" image.
History
Wasaga Beach and the surrounding area was inhabited by the Huron-Wendat Nation for centuries before they were conquered and driven from their ancestral lands in 1649 by the Iroquois Haudenosaunee. Wasaga is a contraction of the Algonquin word Nottawasaga. Nottawa means "Iroquois" and saga means "mouth of the river"; the word "Nottawasaga" was used by Algonquin scouts as a warning if they saw Iroquois raiding parties approaching their villages.In 1812 the United States declared war on Great Britain and invaded Upper Canada on several occasions. Wasaga Beach became a strategic location at the mouth of the Nottawasaga River leading to Fort Willow and the Nine Mile Portage which was part of the supply line for British forces in the War of 1812 to Fort Michilimackinac and points to the north and west. The Royal Navy schooner HMS Nancy was scuttled in the Nottawasaga River to prevent the Americans from capturing her and her stores.
Lumbering was the main industry for the remainder of the 19th century. Logs were floated downriver and into the bay, gathered at ports to feed local saw mills.
Because Wasaga Beach had sandy soil unsuitable for cultivation, it did not attract early European settlement. In the 1820s the first sign of settlement in the area began as John Goessman surveyed Flos Township. In 1826, land was being sold for four shillings an acre. Though unsuitable for farming, the Wasaga Beach area had an abundance of trees. In the late 1830s and throughout the rest of the century, the logging industry was key to the economy and integral to development of the area. The first permanent settler was John Van Vlack, who arrived in 1869 and founded a settlement on the south side of the Nottawasaga River near its mouth and named it after himself. In 1872, a wooden bridge, the Vanvlack Bridge, was constructed east of the present Main Street bridge to provide access to the beach, then used mainly as a road. The name Wasaga Beach was first used in the area in the late 19th Century.
During the 1900s, families began to discover the beauty of the area. The beach gradually became a place for family picnics and holidays during the summer months, and the first cottages were built. In 1909, a new steel bridge was constructed to replace the Vanvlack Bridge. Wasaga Beach had its beginning as a major resort area when the first beachfront hotel, The Capstan Inn, was opened in 1915 by entrepreneur John McLean in what would later develop into the present Beach One area. In 1918, he opened the Dardanella Dance Hall, and over the next several decades more hotels, venues, and amusements would open. During the 1940s, servicemen stationed at Base Borden, a nearby military base, visited Wasaga Beach's amusement park, and they made Wasaga Beach known across the country. After the war, Wasaga Beach continued to be a popular place for cottagers and day trippers. However, most of the attractions would subsequently close down, with Playland ceasing operations in 1985. Two water parks, both named Waterworld, opened that year, with Blue Mountain resorts first constructing the Waterslides at beach area 1 with Waterworld taking over. The main park closed at the end of the 2007 summer season whilst the beach area 1 park closed in 2006 and subsequently being demolished due to multiple cost issues, with the location at Beach One converted into a splash pad, which was itself later closed and turned into a performance space.
Wasaga Beach entered history's headlines in 1934. It was the site of departure for the first overseas flight from mainland Canada across the Atlantic Ocean to England. A plane, named Trail of the Caribou, used the beach as a makeshift runway.
The town was originally referred to as "the northern border of Flos, Sunnidale and Nottawasaga Townships". The first municipal reference occurred with a designation of a Local Improvement District in 1947. In 1949, Wasaga Beach was classified as a police village within Sunnidale Township, and was incorporated as a village in 1951.
In 1959, the beach was designated as a "Crown beach", which was the precursor to the establishment of Wasaga Beach Provincial Park. The province began expropriating beachfront properties to create a continuous belt of parkland along the full length of the beach, save for keeping part of the main beach area for commercial uses. This proved controversial; so the province scaled down plans and settled for separated park areas, which are today's Beach Areas 2–6. Driving and parking on the beach was previously permitted and popular, but in 1973 the province took cars off the beach. However, a paved beachfront street, Beach Drive, was constructed along Beach 1 shortly thereafter.
Wasaga Beach's later 20th Century growth was largely due to it absorbing many nearby smaller beach communities strung out along the bay:
In 1966, the village annexed the adjacent Oakview Beach from Sunnidale Township. On January 1, 1974, Wasaga Beach was incorporated as a town and annexed additional beach communities such Springhurst Beach, New Wasaga Beach, and Brock's Beach from Flos and Nottawasaga Townships respectively. That year, the permanent population stood at 4,034, a dramatic increase from 1965, when 500 people were residents.
The last expansion took place in 1994, when Bower's Beach was annexed from Nottawasaga Township. Today, the town has 24,862 full-time residents and 16,000 seasonal and part-time residents.
2007 Beach One fire
On November 30, 2007, a major fire destroyed 90 per cent of the buildings along the street mall in the Beach One area. About 17 seasonal businesses were said to have been affected, including bikini shops, ice cream parlours, a restaurant, a motel, and an arcade. Nearly 100 firefighters, most from surrounding municipalities, battled the blaze for hours. The Toronto Star later reported that "Twenty-one businesses in eight buildings overlooking Georgian Bay were destroyed, causing an estimated $5 million in damages."Controversy also arose over whether or not the fire was deliberately set in order to allow unobstructed progression with the planned development or whether it was simply an accident. Two young men were charged with arson, although there was no evidence that the fire was deliberately set to remove the old buildings in advance of planned development.
The Town of Wasaga Beach worked out a plan to help the remaining businesses open for the season but plans for hotels, a theme park and a monorail were cancelled. However, [|a new development plan] was released in January 2017.
New development plans
An entirely new Downtown Development Master Plan was released by town council in late January 2017, with an estimate for capital investment of $625 million and a 20 plus year time frame for completion. The first phase will cost about $200 million for two development areas, one on the beach and one across the river.In July 2018, under the council led by then-mayor Brian Smith, council agreed to enter into a Letter of Intent with FRAM Building Group for the development of town-owned land in the downtown and at the beachfront.
In December 2018, under a new council, with Nina Bifolchi as mayor, council decided to undertake a review of the development of town-owned lands in the downtown and at the beachfront.
The council agreed to let the Letter of Intent the town had with FRAM Building Group Ltd. lapse at the end of December 2018 as a first step in the review process. The Downtown Master Plan, however, remained in place. In March 2019, FRAM advised the town it was not interested in being a part of future development of the beachfront. The town began looking for other developers interested in developing town-owned land at the beachfront.
In September 2021, the Wasaga Beach Ratepayers Association opposed the scope of what they perceived to be excessively high densities in the development plans, and the association's president was accused by the Town of spreading false information and exaggerating said densities, as well as claiming residents were being shut out of Town Hall. This led to residents protesting in October.
By June 2024, the years-long plan for the beachfront redevelopment was finally approved, and was unveiled at a public meeting attended by hundreds at the RecPlex on June 20 by Mayor Brian Smith and the project leader from FRAM Building Groupwho had initially pulled out of the project in 2019 before rejoiningand Sunray Group of Hotels. In 2025, most of the old buildings along Beach Drive were demolished, and development of the first phase began that June with the construction of townhomes and retail space, with a Marriott hotel set to break ground in 2026.