Typical Rondeau Cottages...

Most people who oppose cottages in Rondeau have never even visited Rondeau. Here is a look at typical Rondeau cottages viewed from the road. These were photographed at random and cover all areas of the park. Like in any community Rondeau's cottages span a wide range of design styles and build qualities. Some are modest, others are more impressive; some are small, others are large; some are well-maintained, others not so much. Even provincial government ministers have been misinformed about the true nature of our community -- we've heard them alternately claim our cottages are falling-down shacks and palatial estates. In actual fact they look very much like homes you'd find in any other rural village. The difference is, the province told us to build them inside a provincial park.

The Rondeau Cottagers Association hopes that actually seeing the cottages as they exist today (autumn 2022) will allow those wanting all 278 cottages bulldozed en masse to appreciate how truly unique our tiny, perpetually-threatened village-in-a-park is. It's easy to hate people you've never met and criticize places you've never visited. In fact, every provincial Minister who has personally visited Rondeau in the last 30 years said the lots should be sold to the cottage owners.

Our cottages are not terrible, awful, harmful, destructive places. We are not terrible, awful, harmful, destructive people. Since 1894 we've built a unique, resilient, ecologically-integrated village-in-a-park that we're proud to call our summer home.  

These are our cottages. This is our community.

This is Rondeau.

Parks are for people too.

Photos of the Lake Erie beach and dunes behind the cottages: The two photos below were taken on Lake Erie's sand dunes halfway to the beach behind a cottage on Lakeshore Rd. You can barely see the cottages along the road in the distance. The cottage lots here end apx 100m (350') from the water's edge. Everything you see is public park and will forever remain public.

Aerial Photo of the Rondeau Peninsula: In this photo the public campground and swimming beach are the open areas at lower- right, with Lakeshore Rd cutting a path parallel to the Lake Erie beach. Most cottages line Lakeshore Rd and cannot even be seen from the air. Photo believed to have been taken in the 1990's by pilot Austin Wright; shared by Ontario Parks.