The SS Bigwin Sat Ashore All Summer, And Lake Of Bays Didn't Miss A Beat

Walk down to the public dock in Dorset this month and the slip beside the Lake of Bays Marine Museum is empty. The SS Bigwin, the 1910 steamship that has carried generations of passengers across Trading Bay, is sitting on land. The museum door is still propped open. The gift shop still sells the same souvenirs. But the boat that usually anchors the view from that dock isn't there.

She suffered ice damage over the winter, and the repairs have taken longer than the Lake of Bays Marine Museum and Navigation Society hoped. An update posted to the ship's own site this season says she will remain ashore for the rest of 2026. That's a change from an earlier note on the same site, which had aimed for a return to the water sometime in August. Somewhere between those two updates, the timeline slipped, and the century-old vessel that usually defines a Lake of Bays summer simply stayed put.

If you live here, you already know this. What you might not have clocked yet is what filled the space she left behind, and what that says about which part of this township actually carries the weight of a summer.

The Boat Was Never The Only Anchor

For years, the rhythm of a Lake of Bays summer had an easy shorthand: the SS Bigwin sails, therefore the season is running as it should. Ninety-minute cruises out of Dorset and Dwight, day trips past century-old lodges and pristine shoreline. It was the postcard version of the lake, and it was reliable enough that its absence this year left an obvious gap.

Except the gap didn't stay empty for long. While the ship sat in dry dock, the Township of Lake of Bays was quietly rebuilding something else, and it happened almost entirely because of a problem that had nothing to do with the water at all.

The Baysville Farmers' Market, a Friday fixture in the hamlet for close to two decades, lost its private operator heading into this season. At the February 10, 2026 council meeting, the Township stepped in with a limited three-year plan to run the market itself while it looks for a new community partner. Mayor Terry Glover explained the stakes plainly at the time:

"Losing this market would mean more than just missing a weekly event. It brings people into town, gives local growers and entrepreneurs a place to sell, and adds life to the hamlet every Friday."

The market didn't just get a new operator. It got a new address, moving onto the grounds of the Lake of Bays Community Centre, right beside the library, the arena, and the new splash pad that opened this summer. One trip to town now covers a swim, a library stop, and a market walk without moving the car.

Demand outran the Township's own math. Staff had budgeted for roughly ten vendors and about $2,750 in season revenue when the plan was approved in February. By the March 10 council meeting, the vendor count had already climbed to 33, with more applications still coming in. Council set fees at $275 for the season or $30 per pre-booked date, numbers modest enough that they read less like a business plan and more like a town trying to make sure the lights stay on for a market it isn't ready to lose.

Two Clocks, Not One

None of this replaces the SS Bigwin. But it does mean the township's actual weekly pulse this year runs on a schedule that has nothing to do with the dock in Dorset. There are two standing markets carrying that job instead, one in Baysville and one up the highway in Dwight.

That's a Wednesday in Dwight and a Friday in Baysville, both still running as of this week, both closing out within the next three weeks. If your summer routine has been built around a boat that wasn't there to build it around, these two afternoons are where the township's actual foot traffic has been landing instead.

What's Still Worth The Stop In Dorset

The dock itself hasn't gone quiet even with the ship ashore. A few things there are worth the detour on their own terms:

• The Lake of Bays Marine Museum, still open at the dock, with the same photographs and artifacts on the history of the lake and the ship itself
• Robinson's General Store, a short walk up the hill, still stocking everything from groceries to hardware under one roof
• The Dorset Scenic Lookout Tower, for the kind of wide view over the lake that doesn't depend on anything floating
• The Dorset Heritage Museum, tucked into the same small stretch of the hamlet

None of that required the steamship to be running. It just used to sit in the shadow of a bigger draw. This year, without that shadow, it's easier to notice how much of Dorset's daily texture was never actually about the boat.

The Town Adapted Faster Than The Repair Schedule

Here's the part worth sitting with if you live on this lake year-round. A single piece of ice damage was enough to sideline the region's best-known heritage attraction for an entire season, and the timeline for her return has already slipped once in public view. That's not a knock on the volunteers restoring her. Hull repairs on a Transport Canada certified 1910 vessel don't run on anyone's convenience.

But it does mean the township's actual resilience this summer showed up somewhere else entirely, in a market that a council meeting saved with a three-year stopgap plan and a fee schedule set in $30 increments. Thirty-three vendors showed up for a market the Township budgeted for ten. A splash pad opened next door. A Wednesday market in Dwight kept its own separate season running at the Garden Centre without missing a date.

The lake's most photographed asset spent the whole summer on dry land, and the community built its Fridays and Wednesdays around something sturdier instead. That's not a smaller story than the one about the boat. It might be the more useful one, if you're trying to understand what actually holds this place together when the postcard version of it goes quiet for a season.

If Lake of Bays already feels like home and you're the kind of person who likes knowing what's actually happening behind the scenic version of the lake, Marilyn Mannion spends a lot of time in these same hamlets and is always glad to compare notes. Let's Connect.