Hey

My wife and I own 356 acres on the shores of Lake Superior called Alona Bay or Theano Point. This bay has been in the documentary title "unsalted:a great lakes experience" aswell as on the globalsurfers.com website. It sounds like it is a great place for surfing.

We are trying to decide what kind of business would be best suited there. One option is to build a few cabins on the shore just for surfing enthousiasts.

My question to all of you is whether anyone has surfed there, and if you think that this could be a good business venture.

Any ideas and contacts would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you all

Jimmy

Jimmy,
If you were to develop cabins along the shore for surfers, you would be a pioneer in this area as far as I know for implementing such a venture that is geared towards lake surfing.
Surfing is and will become more popular on all the lakes. The most important question is that of public access to the lakefront on your property. I've never been to this spot, but I think it would be nice to have cabins right near a spot that you could surf, as long as they were designed with the surrounding environment in mind.
I do think you made a smart move by appealing for info on this site. In my opinion, as long as you don't overdevelop, respect the environment land/water, and don't restrict access to the lakeshore for potential guests as well as non-guests who just want to surf there, then you could be onto something here?
I've never surfed Superior but hope to someday. The pic posted from the other side of the lake that was taken on Sunday looked unreal! If your plans are implemented with the ideas/input you are seeking on this site, I would stay at your cabins.

Hey Jimmy,

The problem is that the number of surfers in the great lakes region is relatively small. Furthermore most surfers are located far away from Alona Bay; the only surfing community reasonably close are the guys who surf the south shore of Lake Superior on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The only reason the Unsalted guys found Alona Bay was because they were on the UP looking for places to film the OP surfing team in action. The winds had too much west and not enough north in them so they had to head for the east shore of Superior and discovered waves in Alona Bay. Although I've not yet surfed there, I've been to Alona Bay because my cottage is only a couple hours to the east (near Blind River, Ontario). My guess is that the waves there are not any better than the waves that most lake surfers can find much closer to home.

Not only do you have a small market, but surfers tend to be a low-budget lot. So surfers who visited Alona Bay might choose to sleep somewhere cheaper (e.g., camp on crown land) than in one of your cabins even if they were reasonably priced.

I'm sure your property is beautiful. Are you the sole landowner on Theano Point?

Dan

Having the cabins as a sort of getaway for people and couples, and including the opportunity to surf as an aside is a more realistic idea, since purely surfing would be such a small market. If you wanted to include other water sports as well, think how many more you could offer in the warmer months...

Is this legitimate?


Maybe Vince Deur will read this and respond. Do you have any diving sites there with ship wrecks? My wife and her diving friends are always looking for cool places to dive. Diversification is always a good bet because surfing in the Great Lakes is fickle. I would love to spend some time with my family in a cabin up there and ride some waves. It would be an exotic vacation.