Errington's
Wilderness Island Resort

All of our housekeeping cabins now have large comfortable open decks in addition to the screened in porches. We also added an very large deck to the front of our six suites.. It took us 2 summers and considerable planning to add these decks.

The decks are adding considerably to the opportunity to enjoy being outdoors. We generally only have a problem with mosquitoes and black flies for about 1-2 hours at dusk which is when the screened in porches on each cottage come in handy. These decks have comfortable bench seats around them and afford everyone a great view of the night sky for star gazing and northern lights viewing.

Great Water

We are at the top of the watershed between Hudson Bay and Lake Superior. There is no one upstream from us and the water is very soft with an extremely low mineral content. Lake Wabatongushi water is very healthy. Unfortunately this means many organisms besides fish, birds and animals find Lake Wabatongushi water a great living environment. We do not recommend drinking the water directly out of the lake.

In 2003 we changed all of our water supply systems over to stringent filtering and Ultra Violet sterilization. In the past we have used chlorine for sterilization however it has some significant shortfalls. Chlorine is a toxic chemical which can harm human and marine life. Over treating with chlorine can lead to health problems such as cancer while under treating with chlorine is ineffective for sterilization. At the same time it is not effective against some types of organisms including giardia or beaver fever and some types of bacteria. It also leaves a taste in the water.

Giardia can be removed by 2 micron filters. We are filtering our water down to 1/2 microns which not only removes Giardia but almost all other organisms as well. After filtering the water passes through a Ultra Violet sterilizer which uses ultraviolet light to kill the few remaining organisms. Ultraviolet light is a much more effective sterilizer than chlorine and leaves the water chemical free. Our ultraviolet sterilizer is providing approximately 4X the treatment needed yet has no negative effects on the water quality at all.

We are still using chlorine to shock treat our water distribution system at the beginning of the season before our resort is open. We are however looking into the use of hydrogen peroxide for sterilizing our water distribution system instead of chlorine. Although Hydrogen Peroxide is more expensive than chlorine, it is also much more effective and breaks down to become water.

Overall we feel our water supply is at least as safe as the water you drink out of your tap at home however we will continue to investigate the best water treatments available.

For more information please contact us, Al & Doris Errington, at:
Errington's
Wilderness Island Resort
Wabatongushi Lake * Ontario * Canada
P.O. Box 22057, 44 Great Northern Road
Sault Ste. Marie ON P6B-6H4 CANADA
Tel/Fax May - Sept. (705)884-2215
Tel/Fax Oct. - Apr. (705)946-2010
Web Site - http://www.WildernessIsland.com 
Email - Vacation "at symbol" WildernessIsland "dot" com