TINY – An Experience in Uniqueness
The following comments were abstracted from remarks made by Jack Ellis, the President of the Federation of Tiny Township Shoreline Associations, to the Simcoe County Study Committee in October 1990. Most of us would share his views of the uniqueness of Tiny.
“We would definitely like to make a case to you that Tiny is unique. I realize that there are 33 municipalities in the county and that they all have a distinctiveness to them. You do have to have a very special combination of distinct features that merits the term ‘unique’. Certainly, if you look at Tiny, it is unique environmentally, it is large in the extent of its land area. It is unique in its situation on the Bay, in its beaches and inland lakes.
Although the upland areas may not be terribly different from those in other municipalities in Simcoe County, they are certainly present in what I think is a unique juxtaposition to the beaches, shorelines and wetlands, all of which are very important in this municipality. The agricultural and forest lands are well combined.
On the cultural side, Tiny has a very unusual mix of shoreline communities and inland hamlets, sufficiently unusual as to be called unique. The shoreline communities are resort and recreational based and there is a diversity and distinctiveness from one another.
I would be happy to show you that diversity and just what it is. It varies through the whole spectrum of resort communities. However, we do not go to the crowded ‘Coney Island’ type resort or the high rise condo type. But everything beyond that, to the end of the wilderness is encompassed in the tiny shoreline communities. Who can deny that the history and heritage of Tiny is unique? When you think of Tiny, you think of Huronia, with the addition of sites in Midland and Penetanguishene and the lands populated by the Indian nations which were the subject of events in the 17th century and onward.
Certainly the rural hamlets and villages like Lafontaine, Wyevale, Perkinsfield and others are significantly unique in their pastoral settings. The whole package does make Tiny much deserving of the term, ‘unique’.”
