mysterious, even shadowy.
But author
Stephen Selk views it differently.
“I would say that today the Long Point Company has a well-curated image as a
group of individuals interested in conservation,” he says. “It may value
privacy, but it wasn’t always so, it was far less private in its early days
when the members of the company openly bragged about their shooting
accomplishments.”
Despite
its origins in an era of unfettered hunting, the Company, founded in 1866,
evolved to play a pivotal role in preserving the Lake Erie sandspit now
recognized as one of Canada’s most important ecosystems. Selk’s book Lake
Erie’s Long Point and the Company that Saved It, newly issued in a second
edition, chronicles that transformation.
At 467
pages with 500 references, the book reflects years of research and writing
motivated by Selk’s personal history.
“In 1951, my father built a cottage on Long Point, but the property was
expropriated in 1960 for the provincial park,” he said in a recent interview. “So,
we got kicked out and I remember being bitter about that as a child.”
In his
teen years, Selk came back and explored the length of the point, including the
restricted Long Point Company lands. Memories of these adventures followed Selk
as his career eventually took him to the U.S. and work as a federal
investigator. This role, in turn, gave
him knowledge of how to access archival records and other resources that he
exploited in retirement.
“About eight years ago, I was in the Library of Congress and looked up Long
Point as a lark, and up came all these hits including one for a book titled the
Long Point Company privately published in 1932,” he said, noting that the book
raised questions as well as answering some. “And I thought that this is a story
that needs to be told.”
Created
on the eve of Confederation by wealthy investors who bought the Long Point land
from the Crown, the Company aimed to create a private duck-hunting haven.
Though its members had personal motives, their actions preserved the fragile
ecosystem as they vigorously enforced anti-poaching rules and blocked
development. Before the Company’s acquisition, Long Point faced unrestricted
public hunting that decimated bird populations and potential development that would
have threatened its survival. Ironically, it was sport-minded capitalists who
ensured its long-term protection.
One of
Selk’s most engaging sections offers short biographies of early shareholders
who were not just outdoorsmen but industrial titans. These included Canadian
shipping magnate Sir Hugh Allan, auto pioneer R.S. McLaughlin, and department
store heir Marshall Field III as well as J.P. Morgan’s grandsons and his Standard
Oil Trust treasurer Oliver Payne. Executives linked to national railroads,
finance houses, and manufacturing giants gathered in Long Point’s marshes.
“One of J.P Morgan's grandsons was a director of General Motors and brought
Colonel McLaughlin into the Long Point Company,” Selk says. “Another member,
Watson Dickerman, president of the New York Stock Exchange, recruited some of
his wealthiest clients to the Company.”
Selk
also explores the region’s deeper history — geological, Indigenous, and
settler. Early British military officers sought to reserve Long Point for their
own use, reflecting aristocratic traditions and setting the stage for ownership
by the New World’s elite.
The
story also includes the tale of local economic development. The 19th century,
Norfolk County was bustling with over 100 mills, a brewery, distillery, farms,
and the Normandale ironworks.
“This was a very dynamic economy,” Selk says. “One spring there were 66,000
logs waiting to be shipped on Big Creek … and I have one port arrival record
from Buffalo describing a schooner loaded with 234,000 wooden shingles from
Port Rowan.”
Such
prosperity fueled the Company’s first investors, among them local businessmen
and big-city wholesale grocers. One was William B. Hunter, a former Hamiltonian
turned Wall Street businessman, who drew wealthy Americans into the fold with
promises of an exclusive hunting retreat across the border.
Selk’s
book is also peppered with side stories — like illicit prize fights hosted on
the island — that reveal Long Point’s Gilded Age reputation as a secluded venue
for high-society indulgence.
For
decades, the Company was both praised for preservation and criticized for
restricting public access to lands of national significance. Tensions eased about1980
when through a mind-numbingly complex transaction the Long Point Company effectively
transferred much of its land to the Canadian Wildlife Service. In 1982, the
area gained designation as a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance, and by
1986, it was a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve.
These
milestones reflected the balance Selk describes as private stewardship giving
way to public trust around the Company’s role in protecting the area.
By
tracing its origins, profiling key players, and unpacking its complex legacy,
Selk’s work shows how wealth, wilderness, and influence intersected at Long
Point.
For
anyone curious about the forces that shaped this unique place, Lake Erie’s
Long Point and the Company that Saved It is essential reading.
The
book also humanizes the Long Point Company and, maybe, makes it a little less
mysterious.