[2] The land on which the Wawa was later built was originally thickly wooded; First Nations groups knew and likely camped in the area, as evidenced by an arrowhead found on the point itself.

Around this time, the site of the later Wawa Hotel was cleared and settled by John Wilson Robertson, a coal merchant from Edinburgh, and his family.

As other farmers in the region also discovered, the Robertsons found the land to be challenging to work, as the soil consisted primarily of sand with many stones and little humus.

[1] Built in 1908, the Wawa hotel was a wooden structure consisting of a three-story centre block flanked by a pair of two story wings.

The centre block was capped by a five-story tower featuring a powerful electric searchlight (a novelty at the time) and housed the main rotunda and a dining room with capacity for 300 people.

[2] The Wawa Hotel was situated on a piece of property including and extending out to the south of Norway Point, approximately midway between the towns of Baysville and Dorset.

In addition to this, the fire hydrants in the building were rendered useless because the water supply had been shut off at the main valve in the kitchen.