Canadian Bay Club

Canadian Bay Beach

Canadian Bay was names after 3 Canadian wood cutters working in the area. Mr's Hodgins, McCurley and Jones cut wattle and sheoak logs and shipped them on the schooner "Liverpool" from Canadian Bay to "Sandridge", now Port Melbourne, to sell at the Melbourne Markets.

In 1895 James Paterson, a ship owner and coal merchant owned the property "Rubra" on Watts Parade. With the use of 12 draught horses he hauled the deckhouse off a swedish ship he owned and dragged it up the cliffs at Canadian Bay to be installed as a changing room for his tennis court. The deckhouse weighted 6 tons!

A group of residence formed the Canadian Bay Club in 1958. John Fisher, one of the founding members designed the clubhouse. Sir Laurence Hartnett, also a founding member but better known as Managing Director of General Motors Australia and for his role as developer of the first Holden car, was the original club commodore. Interestingly, Hartnett was a later owner of "Rubra" mentioned above.

Fame came to Canadian Bay in 1959 when it was used to film "On the beach" adapted from Neville Shute's best selling novel. The was film directed by Stanley Kramer and starred Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire and Anthony Perkins.

In the mid 1960's the cliffs around Canadian Bay were very unstable and in some placed collapsed making the area dangerous for visitors. Fortunately this has now been stablised.

Today there are some great walks along the cliff tops or around the beaches where the scenery can be enjoyed.