Haven cottagers build economies: seasonal properties help pay taxes, spur construction in small towns.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: NEWS

It's no secret everyone wants their own piece of cottage paradise.

And many hard-scrabble Northern Ontario communities battling outmigration and loss of industry are warming up to the idea that rocks, trees and isolation has its own hidden rewards.

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The City of Elliot Lake's successful cottage lot program has grabbed the real estate headlines in southern Ontario, but Karl Hopf likes to think Pickle Lake wrote the book on Crown land cottage development.

"Pickle Lake is light years ahead of anybody in the province," says the town administrator, who has brought his power point presentation to other communities eager to hear how a remote town of 479 has become cottage country.

Pickle Lake is as far north as one can drive on a paved surface in Ontario.

The former gold and copper mining town serves as a transportation and service hub for mineral exploration and the fly-in Aboriginal communities to the north.

But the distance has been no great hardship for people from Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin who are willing to drive six hours north from the border to the end of Highway 599 for 200 feet of frontage on one of Canada's best walleye lakes.

The community has been running a successful cottage lot development since starting a five-year process in 1999 with a dozen other northwestern Ontario municipalities.

But Pickle Lake emerged as the only one to see it through.

"The reason the town did it was because no one was doing it," says Hopf.

With no private developer in sight, the town fronted the $175,000 for all the the environmental and planning studies while working arm-in-arm with the Ministry of Natural Resources to set down sustainable development guidelines.

Pickle Lake's reasons are like many communities who seek to diversify their economy, attract a population that spends locally and to encourage construction to boost their tax base as mines and mill close and young skilled people head elsewhere.

The first round of development on 12-mile-long Kapkichi Lake west of town, sold all 34 remote lots within six months.

About 40 per cent of cottage owners are local, 20 per cent Ontarians and 40 per cent from the U.S.

"You'd be amazed," says Hopf. "I got a call from a border patrol office two months ago who wanted nine lots with his friends because the people coming through were telling him how this worked."

There hasn't been any great marketing campaign. It's been mostly word of mouth.

Hopf estimates cottage taxes makes up 10 to...