Grand Bend is a community located on the shores of Lake Huron in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. It is part of the Municipality of Lambton Shores in

Lambton County Lambton County is a county in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. It is bordered on the north by Lake Huron, which is drained by the St. Clair River, the county's western border and part of the Canada-United States border. To the south is Lake Saint Cl ...

History

Grand Bend is situated on the traditional territory of the Attawandaron and Ojibwe/Chippewa First Nations. It was ceded to the crown as part of a parcel called the

Huron Tract The Huron Tract Purchase also known as the Huron Block, registered as Crown Treaty Number 29, is a large area of land in southwestern Ontario bordering on Lake Huron to the west and Lake Erie to the east. The area spans the counties of Huron, Pert ...

, in Treaty 27, 1829. In the 1830s a group of English and Scottish settlers bought lots from the Canada Company, a land development firm. One of the original settlers, Benjamin Brewster gave his name to the village after he and his business partner David Smart secured rights to dam the Ausable River and started a sawmill in 1832. The villagers were mainly the families of the millhands and fishermen. Their homesteads were situated on the south side of the present village, but Grand Bend was originally founded and discovered by Frank Salter, who was a very well-known Lake resort owner and country club developer. For twenty years Brewster existed as an isolated lumbering community. Until the opening of the highway to Goderich in 1850, both people and provisions had to travel by water. Once road connections were complete, the village was no longer solely dependent on the forests for its livelihood and opportunities for new businesses emerged. Typical of many pioneer communities, the village assumed many different names throughout its history— Brewster's Mills, Websterville, and Sommerville are all recorded. Early French Canadian settlers in the area referred to the present location of the village as "Aux Crochet", 'at the bends'. Grand Bend survived as a name, perhaps because it was the most appropriate— the tight hairpin turn in the original Ausable River where mills were first established.

Land ownership controversies

''Noble v Alley''

Improved roads and the arrival of the automobile near the turn of the century had the greatest influence on the growth of Grand Bend. Businesses were established to serve visitors and travellers along the highway, and with the beach, "The Bend" became a summer destination. In the 1940s, however, Grand Bend became the centre of a major controversy in the landmark court case of '' Noble v Alley''. Wolf, a London, Ontario merchant, faced court challenges when he purchased property at Beach O'Pines in contravention of a restrictive covenant that prohibited the ownership of lots or cottages by persons of "Jewish, Hebrew, Semitic, Negro or coloured race or blood". The case was finally heard by the Supreme Court of Canada which ruled that the restrictive covenant as constituted was invalid.

''Gibbs v Grand Bend''

In the late 1980s, a landowner went to the

Supreme Court of Ontario The Supreme Court of Ontario was a superior court of the Canadian province of Ontario. Created in 1881 pursuant to the Ontario Judicature Act (1881), the Supreme Court of Ontario had two branches: the High Court of Justice Division and the Appell ...

seeking a

declaration Declaration may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Declaration'' (book), a self-published electronic pamphlet by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri * ''The Declaration'' (novel), a 2008 children's novel by Gemma Malley Music ...

that he was the successor in title to the entire north beach of Grand Bend, amounting to , by virtue of a land grant given to the Canada Company in 1836. Although successful at trial in 1989, it was overturned at the

Ontario Court of Appeal The Court of Appeal for Ontario (frequently referred to as the Ontario Court of Appeal or ONCA) is the appellate court for the province of Ontario, Canada. The seat of the court is Osgoode Hall in downtown Toronto, also the seat of the Law Socie ...

in 1995, which held that, while the beach did not constitute lands reserved to the Crown, the owners had lost ownership to it over the years because of implied dedication and acceptance for public recreational use. As he was required to give the public access to the beach, he subsequently charged parking fees to the visitors and personally cleaned up the beach every night. In 1998 he reached agreement with the province and the village of Grand Bend to sell the property. There was a separate continuing ownership dispute relating to the harbour at the mouth of the Ausable River. 12 Main Street, Grand Bend

Present day

Grand Bend is home to a variety of stores and eateries. The main strip is the centre of activity in the town, with shopping during the day and night life venues during the evening drawing crowds. The atmosphere of Grand Bend has given the town a reputation of being Florida north. As well as Main Street, Grand Bend acts as a regional cultural centre, boasting

art galleries An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The lon ...

in the town and the Huron Country Playhouse on the outskirts. Today, Grand Bend's year-round population of 2,000 people swells to about 50,000 in the summer months on holiday weekends. The demographic population of Grand Bend is quite diverse. Families owning vacation homes in the adjacent communities of Oakwood Park, Southcott Pines and Beach O' Pines, are from Ontario, Michigan and as far as New York,

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

and the American west coast. Among these are the Romney family. The town as well serves as the backdrop of the docu-drama MTV Show ''Grand Benders'', filmed from 2011 to the present and produced by MDF Productions. The Pinery Provincial Park and the Lambton Heritage Museum are located seven kilometres south of Grand Bend. Also, in the vicinity one can explore a number of 'Gems of Nature' accessible by marked and maintained hiking trails. Grand Bend Motorplex has a dragstrip that hosts an

International Hot Rod Association The International Hot Rod Association (IHRA) is the second-largest drag racing sanctioning body after the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA). The Carrier Era 1971-1987 The IHRA was formed in November 1970 by businessman Larry Carrier. Through ...

race and the IHRA Canadian Nationals, Canada's longest running and largest drag race.

References

External links

* {{authority control Populated places on Lake Huron in Canada Communities in Lambton County Former villages in Ontario