Gossling’s Animal Park – A long forgotten refuge for orphaned and abandoned wild animals

J.W. Gossling with Tony the fawn in from of Gossling’s Animal Park on Sunnidale Road in the 1920s. Photo: Marilyn Spring & Beautiful Barrie.

March 2024

Zoos, or animal parks, have been popular tourist attractions for hundreds of years in both big cities and small communities. Simcoe County currently has the Elmvale Jungle Zoo, a seasonal zoo opened in 1967 in Elmvale, Ontario, north of Barrie.

Another zoo that operated briefly in Simcoe County in the early part of the 20th Century was Gossling’s Animal Park on Sunnidale Road in what was then Vespra Township, now Springwater Township, north of Barrie.

What became Gossling’s Animal Park started out as the Gossling’s apple farm, when J.W. (John) Gossling and his wife Lucy, bought 100-acres at Lot 19, Concession 8, later adding another 100-acre lot. Gossling was a cooper by trade and had opened his own cooperage shop on Sophia Street in Barrie, where he manufactured casks and barrels. A year later, Gossling and business partner James Vair, a former one-term mayor in Barrie, built an apple-processing plant beside Gossling’s shop for processing fruit, selling pesticides, pressing cider, selling crates and barrels.

This venture was short-lived as the outbreak of World War I impacted their exports to Europe, along with manpower shortages, as young men needed to maintain orchards and pick apples went off to fight the war instead. A similar drop in value of the barrels made them unprofitable and after the war ended, Gossling was not able to get the volume of apples from the area farmers to keep that venture profitable too.

By 1922, Gossling had converted his farm from apples to ranching, establishing Vespra Fur Farms on his Sunnidale Road land. Beginning with silver black foxes, Gossling’s farm became a refuge for orphaned and abandoned wild animals. These animals, which included deer, red foxes, coyotes and pups, several raccoons, black bears, a crow named Bob, a pair of monkeys and Jimmy the skunk, were all treated as pets and cared for by the Gossling family, starting with Tony, a fawn, who was bottle-fed until he could have the run of their 200 acres.

Outside the main gate of the fur farm, Gossling operated a gas and service station to cater to the growing automobile traffic through the area.

In 1927, a pair of Gossling’s silver foxes took the championship at the Royal Winter Fair, the first time a breeder outside of P.E.I. had ever won that competition.

At its height, Gossling’s operation consisted of three ranches, with sometimes as high as 400 foxes. The dense bush lots, two springs and a manmade pond stocked with speckled trout and a variety of water fowl making it their home.

Gossling’s wife Lucy died om 1929 at the far-too-young age of 52, leaving John to care for his six children, ages eight to twenty.

The Great Depression devastated the country and Gossling’s fur business was impacted along with other businesses. After his children all grew up and moved away, Gossling decided to sell Vespra Fur Farms to Allandale, now part of Barrie.

Very little of Gossling’s Vespra Fur Farm remains, but the little stone building and the portico pillars that supported the overhang at the front of Gossling’s Service Station are all that’s left.