The fire hall, the pub site, the marinas and the water treatment plant are all on a single road with no alternate access.
Where Garden Bay sits, and the other places we attend
around Pender Harbour. Every name on the map is a link.
Four names on one map sheet
Garden Bay is a community on the north side of Pender Harbour, in Electoral Area A of the Sunshine Coast Regional District. BC Geographical Names carries four separate entries here. The community name was adopted 31 December 1982. The bay itself and Garden Bay Lake were both adopted on 2 March 1950, thirty-two years earlier. Garden Bay Marine Park was adopted 12 September 1972. All four records sit on map sheet 92F/9.
The official community plan for Egmont and Pender Harbour lists Garden Bay among the plan area's distinct neighbourhood areas, and says that "the primary commercial services and focal points for the community are located in Garden Bay". Garden Bay has a fire hall, two marinas, a treatment plant and a park of its own.
Garden Bay Road leaves the highway at Kleindale and stops
There is one vehicle route in. Garden Bay Road turns off Highway 101 at the head of the harbour and runs west along the north shore. The regional district's 2021 Community Wildfire Protection Plan groups Garden Bay with Port Mellon and Egmont as places on "small secondary highways with no alternate access". Road routing on 12 September 2026 measured 14.58 kilometres and 21 minutes to the Madeira Park centre, and 44.51 kilometres and 48 minutes to Sechelt Hospital. That is roughly twelve kilometres further from the hospital than Madeira Park.
Deller Road, Lyons Road, Pool Road, Panorama Drive, Claydon Road, Hammond Road, Camp Burley Road and Roosen Road all branch from it. The postal code is V0N 1S1.
Hall 2 carries 1,600 gallons and no tender
The Pender Harbour Volunteer Fire Department's second hall is at 13303 Deller Road, with about fifteen members. Engine 4 has a 1,000 US gallon tank and a 1,050 gallon-per-minute pump; Engine 5 has 600 gallons and 840 gallons per minute. Neither is a tender, and the department lists none at either hall. Away from a hydrant, 1,600 gallons is the whole supply until a drafting point is set up. The hall reopened on 23 November 2024 after about a million dollars of work, which included a generator.
Of the 229 calls the department answered in 2025, 68 were in Garden Bay. Only Madeira Park, with 79, had more. Crews from this hall reach many calls ahead of the ambulance, which comes fourteen minutes away in Madeira Park.
The pub opened in 1932 and burned on 26 November 2020
The Garden Bay Pub was destroyed by fire that night. CTV News reported that the building dated from 1932 and that performers had travelled from across North America to play there. Ron Johnston owned it from 1982 to 2014:
During the summer months, we did music seven nights a week, sometimes even music in two rooms.
Ron Johnston, former owner, CTV News, November 2020
Fifteen months later, on 10 February 2022, fire at the far end of a dock at Pender Harbour Resort & Marina destroyed three power boats of about 35 feet and left a 40-foot sailboat close to a write-off. The marina was full at 90 boats. The loss was put at about $800,000 and the cause was undetermined.
The treatment plant on the lake dates from 1985
Garden Bay Lake supplies the North Pender Harbour water system, which also serves Irvines Landing, Daniel Point and Sakinaw Ridge. The plant stands on the southeast side of the lake and was upgraded between 2010 and 2012. It ran ultraviolet disinfection and sodium hypochlorite injection for about 1,064 people through 591 services in 2021. Laboratory turbidity averages under 1 NTU, but the online turbidimeter at the plant has recorded frequent spikes, to a maximum of 13.14 NTU. A consultant has costed a replacement plant at $9,004,000 and recommended a 150 kW standby generator for the existing works, which have none. On 12 November 2025 a pickup went into Garden Bay Lake and a containment boom was put out.
Police recorded 61 calls for service here in the fourth quarter of 2023, eight of them Priority 1. A whole community mailbox unit was taken from Roosen Road on 15 September 2021, and boxes at Garden Bay Road and Hammond Road were broken into between 22 and 25 October 2021. During the snow of 3 and 4 February 2025, Garden Bay was the community BC Hydro crews were reported unable to reach.
What a check at Garden Bay covers
The driveway and the stretch of Garden Bay Road in front of it, after snow or a blowdown
Doors, windows, sheds and the boathouse, with every lock tried by hand
Heat running and holding temperature, or the system drained and the valve confirmed shut
The service connection and meter, since North Pender water is billed by volume from 2026
Dock lines, fenders, shore power and the boat itself at either marina
Gutters, roof and any tree leaning toward the house or the overhead service line
The community mailbox the house uses, and mail or parcels piling up at the door
A dated photographic record of all of the above, sent the day the visit happens
Most household policies set a maximum interval between visits to an unoccupied dwelling through the heating season, frequently four consecutive days, and require that the person doing the looking be competent, unless the water is off and the lines are empty. Insurers word this differently. Read the clause in your own policy before you settle on a schedule.
What it costs
A scheduled check at Garden Bay is
$55 a visit, plus
$10 travel. The travel charge is the same
everywhere between Gibsons and Egmont. There is no minimum term and no joining fee.
See the full price list.
Where these facts come from
Every figure, date and quotation on this page was taken from one of these. They are
listed so you can read them yourself.
