The Barrow Bay Property Owners’ Association (BBPOA) is a voluntary association of cottage and home owners around Little Lake and the nearby shores of Georgian Bay, south of Lion’s Head on Ontario’s Bruce Peninsula. We exist so this quiet waterfront community stays healthy, navigable, and connected — season after season.
What we do
BBPOA safeguards the interests of property owners on all four shores of Little Lake and Barrow Bay Proper. The executive works with the Municipality of Northern Bruce Peninsula, neighbouring associations, and provincial partners on issues that shape daily life here: the channel and dredging, roads and municipal services, environmental stewardship, recreational boating, waste and recycling, land-use planning, and taxation.
We have more than 100 member families and continue to grow. Membership is voluntary, includes FOCA (Federation of Ontario Cottagers’ Associations), and funds the work that keeps boats moving between Little Lake and Georgian Bay.
Mission
The mission of the BBPOA is to promote the health of the community of Barrow Bay, and to strengthen communication between cottagers and permanent residents on all four shores of the lake and the bay.
A short history of Barrow Bay
Barrow Bay is a small waterfront community on the Bruce Peninsula: cottages and year-round homes around Little Lake, with a short, man-made channel opening onto Georgian Bay. That channel is the community’s working heart. Without it, fishing boats and pleasure craft could not pass between the inland lake and the big water. For decades, neighbours have organized — first informally, then as BBPOA — to keep the channel open, represent the shores at municipal council, and share news when most families are away for the winter.
Printed newsletters have long been the off-season lifeline for roughly 100 households. Annual gatherings — the AGM, the golf tournament, and the family picnic — raise both funds and friendship. The golf tournament alone has historically contributed tens of thousands of dollars toward channel erosion control and restoration.
Today the association still does what it was formed to do: keep a small peninsula community in touch with itself, and keep the waterway that defines Barrow Bay open to the bay.
Did you know?
- About 85% of residents are seasonal cottagers and 15% live here year-round — the association is how both groups stay in the loop.
- The channel is man-made. Keeping it dredged is not a municipal given; it is a community project paid for by membership and fundraising.
- Your BBPOA dues include FOCA membership, connecting Barrow Bay to more than 50,000 waterfront property owners across Ontario.
- Members have free, unlimited use of the private boat ramp at 12 Channel Road — a practical benefit of belonging.
- Five Directors sit on the Executive with the officers, each representing a different shore or road so every neighbourhood has a voice.
- Lion’s Head, just north of us, is the closest full-service village for shops, fuel, and services.