Lake Muskoka
Encyclopedia
Lake Muskoka is located between Port Carling
and Gravenhurst, Ontario
, Canada. The lake is surrounded by many cottage
s. The lake is primarily in the Township of Muskoka Lakes
, with the southeast corner in the Town of Gravenhurst
. The Town of Bala, Ontario
is located on the southwest shores of the lake, where the Moon River
starts. Lake Muskoka is connected to Lake Rosseau
through the Indian River
and lock system at Port Carling. The lake is mainly fed by the Muskoka River
, Lake Joseph
and Lake Rosseau
.
came to the area next followed by Missionaries. The name Muskoka is thought to come from the name of a Chippewa tribe chief named Mesqua Ukee which means "not easily turned back in the day of battle". Also known as Chief Yellowhead, it was Mesqua Ukee who signed the treaties made between the Indians and Province of Canada
which sold about 250000 acres (1,011.7 km²) of land in the area to the Province. He was so revered by the Ontario government that they built a home for him in Orillia where he lived until his death at age 95.
Geography drove history in the Muskoka region. Studded with lakes and abundant with rocks the land offered an abundance of fishing, hunting, and trapping, but was poorly suited to farming. Largely the land of the Ojibwa people, European inhabitants ignored it while settling the more promising area south of the Severn River. The Ojibwa leader associated with the area was Mesqua Ukie for whom the land was probably named. The tribe lived south of the region, near present day Orillia and used Muskoka as their hunting grounds. Another Ojibwa tribe lived in the area of Port Carling which was called Obajewanung. The tribe moved to Parry Sound around 1866.
when, fearing invasion from its new neighbor to the south the government began exploring the region in hopes of finding travel lanes between Lake Ontario and Georgian Bay In 1826 Lieutenant Henry Briscoe became the first white man known to have crossed the middle of Muskoka. David Thompson
drew the first maps of the area in 1837 and possibly camped near present day Beaumaris.
Canada experienced heavy European immigration in the mid-19th century, especially from Ireland which experienced famine in the 1840s. As the land south of the Severn was settled, the government planned to open the Muskoka region further north to settlement. Logging licenses were issued in 1866 which opened Monck Township to logging. The lumber industry expanded rapidly denuding huge tracts of the area, but also prompting the development of road and water transportation. The railroad pushed north to support the industry, reaching Gravenhurst in 1875 and Bracebridge in 1885. Road transportation took the form of the Muskoka Colonization Road, begun in 1858 and reaching Bracebridge in 1861. The road was roughly hewn from the woods and was of corduroy construction, meaning logs were placed perpendicular to the route of travel to keep carriages from sinking in the mud and swamps. Needless to say this made for extremely rugged travel. The lumbering industry spawned a number of ancillary developments, including as mentioned, transport, but also settlements began springing up to supply the workers and Bracebridge, (formerly North Falls) saw some leather tanning businesses develop. Tanners used the bark from lumber to tan hides thereby using what otherwise would be a waste product.
The passages of the Free Grants and Homestead Act of 1868 brought opened the era of widespread settlement to Muskoka. Settlers could receive free land if they agreed to clear the land, have at least 15 acres (60,702.9 m²) under cultivation, and build a 16 by 20 feet (6.1 m) house. Settlers under the Homestead Act, however, found the going hard. Clearing 15 acres (60,702.9 m²) of dense forest is a huge task, but once the land was clear they were greeted with Muskoka's ubiquitous rocks, which themselves had to be cleared. The soil in the region turned out to be poorly suited to farming consisting largely of a dense clay. As news of the difficult conditions spread back to the south it looked as though development in Muskoka might falter but for a fortuitous development. In a time when the railroads had not yet arrived and road travel was notoriously unreliably and uncomfortable, the transportation king was the steamship. Once a land connection was made to the southern part of the lake in Gravenhurst the logging companies could harvest trees along the entire lakefront with relative ease, so long as they had the means of powering the harvest back to the sawmills in Gravenhurst.
Alexander Cockburn answered the call. Sometimes called the Father of Muskoka, Cockburn began placing steamers on the lake.
Starting with the Wenonah, Ojibwa for first daughter, in 1866 Cockburn pressed the government to open the entire Muskoka lake system to navigation by installing locks in Port Carling and opening a cut between Lake Rosseau and Lake Joseph at Port Sanfield. The government responded to the call, eager to reinforce development in light of the faltering agricultural plan, and built the big locks in Port Carling in 1871. Now Cockburn's steamers had access to the entire lake system. Through the years he added more ships and when he died in 1905 his Muskoka Navigation Company was the largest of its kind in Canada.
Shortly after the arrival of the steamships the seeds were planted which would grow in the rocky soil as agriculture never would. In 1860 two young men, John Campbell and James Bain Jr made a journey that marked them as perhaps the first tourists in the region. Taking the Northern Railway to lake Simcoe, they took the steamer Emily May up the lake to Orillia, rowed across Lake Couchiching they walked up the Colonization Road to Gravenhurst where they vacationed. They liked what they saw and repeated the journey every year bringing friends and relatives. These early tourist pioneers increased demand for transport services in the region, drawn by excellent fishing, natural beauty, and an air completely free of ragweed providing relief for hay fever sufferers. Early tourists built camps, but were joined by others desiring better accommodations. Farmers who were barely scratching a living from the rocky soil soon found demand for overnight accommodations literally arriving on their doorsteps. Some made the switch quickly and converted to boarding houses and hotels. The first wilderness hotel was built at the head of Lake Rosseau in 1870, called Rosseau House. It was owned by New Yorker W.H. Pratt. The idea caught on and tourists came establishing the tourist industry as the up-and-coming money earner in the 1880s.
The steamship era gave rise to the area's great hotels; Rosseau, Royal Muskoka, Windemere, and Beaumaris. When the railroad reached Gravenhurst in 1875 the area grew rapidly. Travel from Toronto, Pittsburgh, and New York became less a matter of endurance than expenditure. Trains regularly made the run from Toronto to Gravenhurst where travelers and their luggage were transferred to the great steamers of the Muskoka Navigation Co such as the Sagamo. Making regular stops up the lakes, including Bracebridge, Beaumaris, and Port Carling, tourists there could transfer to smaller ships such as the Islander which could reach into smaller ports. The hotels became the centers of vacationers lives which could stretch for weeks or even months in the summer. As families became seasonally established they began building cottages near the hotels; at first simple affairs replicating the rustic environment of the early camps, but later grander including in some cases housing for significant staff. Initially cottagers relied on rowboats and canoes for daily transport and would sometimes row substantial distances. Eventually the era of the steam and gasoline launch came and people relied less on muscle power and more on motors. With the boats came the boathouses, often elaborate structures in their own right mimicking in many cases the look and feel of the main cottage.
caused a significant dip in the tourist activity for the area and hence the economy. After the war, however, significant advances in the automobile
brought demand for improved (paved) roads. These two developments, motorboats and private cars brought greater overall development of the area and spread development out over the lakes. Freed from the ports of call of the steamships, people built cottages farther afield. Demand began dropping for the steamship lines. World War II
caused another decline as wartime shortages kept many Americans at home and many Canadians were engaged in war activities. Postwar prosperity brought another boom based around the automobile and the newly affordable fiberglas boat. Suddenly owning a summer cottage became possible not only for the adventurous or the wealthy, but for many in the middle class. The steamship companies retired their boats one by one until the last sailing in the late 1950s.
Between 1942 and 1945, at the Muskoka Airport, the Royal Norwegian Air Force
(RNAF) trained Norwegian pilots during World War II
at what was then called "Little Norway
". One of the planes from a training mission crashed off of Norway Point, killing the pilot. The aircraft was accidentally recovered by a cable crew snagging the plane in 1960 and the pilot was found inside. For reasons unknown the plane was cut free and fell back to the bottom with the pilot still inside. Authorities are investigating this site as time allows. The RNAF's first fatal accident in Muskoka, and the last one recorded by the FTL in Canada, took place August 1944 when a Fairchild PT-19 Cornell trainer with pilot and student aboard lost its wing and crashed into the ground, south of Gravenhurst; both on board died. The bodies were recovered from the dense undergrowth and a wing section was found, but no wreckage was recovered. Not long after, another Fairchild crashed for the same reason, but both occupants escaped by parachute.
Port Carling, Ontario
Port Carling is an unincorporated community in the Township of Muskoka Lakes in the Canadian province of Ontario.It has been the municipal seat of the township since 1971...
and Gravenhurst, Ontario
Gravenhurst, Ontario
Gravenhurst is a town in the Muskoka Region of Ontario, Canada. It is located approximately south of Bracebridge, Ontario. The mayor is Paisley Donaldson...
, Canada. The lake is surrounded by many cottage
Cottage
__toc__In modern usage, a cottage is usually a modest, often cozy dwelling, typically in a rural or semi-rural location. However there are cottage-style dwellings in cities, and in places such as Canada the term exists with no connotations of size at all...
s. The lake is primarily in the Township of Muskoka Lakes
Muskoka Lakes, Ontario
The Township of Muskoka Lakes is an area municipality of the District Municipality of Muskoka, Ontario. It has a year-round population of 6,467 and a summer population of 34,000.-History and government:...
, with the southeast corner in the Town of Gravenhurst
Gravenhurst, Ontario
Gravenhurst is a town in the Muskoka Region of Ontario, Canada. It is located approximately south of Bracebridge, Ontario. The mayor is Paisley Donaldson...
. The Town of Bala, Ontario
Bala, Ontario
Bala is a community located in Muskoka Lakes Township where Lake Muskoka drains into the Moon River at Bala Falls.It is considered one of the hubs of cottage country located north of Toronto. Thus, its year-round population of several hundred is increased by thousands of seasonal residents and...
is located on the southwest shores of the lake, where the Moon River
Moon River (Ontario)
The Moon River is a river in west central Ontario, Canada, which flows from Bala Bay on Lake Muskoka and empties into Georgian Bay south of Parry Sound....
starts. Lake Muskoka is connected to Lake Rosseau
Lake Rosseau
Lake Rosseau is located in Ontario about 200 kilometers north of Toronto. The lake is surrounded by many cottages, some dating back to the late 19th century. The south end of the lake is in the Township of Muskoka Lakes, and the north end is in Seguin Township. Lake Rosseau is connected to Lake...
through the Indian River
Indian River (Ontario)
There are five rivers named Indian River in Ontario, Canada:* The Indian River in the Kawartha Lakes/Peterborough region flows from Stoney Lake into Rice Lake...
and lock system at Port Carling. The lake is mainly fed by the Muskoka River
Muskoka River
The Muskoka River is a river in the Muskoka District of Ontario, Canada.It rises in the highlands of Algonquin Park and flows southwest through a number of lakes including*Lake Muskoka*Lake Joseph*Lake Rosseau*Lake of Bays...
, Lake Joseph
Lake Joseph
Lake Joseph is located in Seguin Township, Ontario. The lake is surrounded by many cottages. Lake Joseph is connected to Lake Rosseau through the narrows at Port Sandfield and the Joseph River.-Lake Front Resident Advocacy Group:...
and Lake Rosseau
Lake Rosseau
Lake Rosseau is located in Ontario about 200 kilometers north of Toronto. The lake is surrounded by many cottages, some dating back to the late 19th century. The south end of the lake is in the Township of Muskoka Lakes, and the north end is in Seguin Township. Lake Rosseau is connected to Lake...
.
Native people
First mention of Muskoka in any records is in 1615 and the territory was occupied by Indians, mainly consisting of the Algonquin and Huron tribes. Early explorers to the region like Samuel De ChamplainSamuel de Champlain
Samuel de Champlain , "The Father of New France", was a French navigator, cartographer, draughtsman, soldier, explorer, geographer, ethnologist, diplomat, and chronicler. He founded New France and Quebec City on July 3, 1608....
came to the area next followed by Missionaries. The name Muskoka is thought to come from the name of a Chippewa tribe chief named Mesqua Ukee which means "not easily turned back in the day of battle". Also known as Chief Yellowhead, it was Mesqua Ukee who signed the treaties made between the Indians and Province of Canada
Province of Canada
The Province of Canada, United Province of Canada, or the United Canadas was a British colony in North America from 1841 to 1867. Its formation reflected recommendations made by John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham in the Report on the Affairs of British North America following the Rebellions of...
which sold about 250000 acres (1,011.7 km²) of land in the area to the Province. He was so revered by the Ontario government that they built a home for him in Orillia where he lived until his death at age 95.
Geography drove history in the Muskoka region. Studded with lakes and abundant with rocks the land offered an abundance of fishing, hunting, and trapping, but was poorly suited to farming. Largely the land of the Ojibwa people, European inhabitants ignored it while settling the more promising area south of the Severn River. The Ojibwa leader associated with the area was Mesqua Ukie for whom the land was probably named. The tribe lived south of the region, near present day Orillia and used Muskoka as their hunting grounds. Another Ojibwa tribe lived in the area of Port Carling which was called Obajewanung. The tribe moved to Parry Sound around 1866.
European arrival
Largely unsettled until the late 1760s the European presence in the region was largely limited to seasonal fur trapping, but no significant trading settlements were established. Canadian government interest increased following the American RevolutionAmerican Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
when, fearing invasion from its new neighbor to the south the government began exploring the region in hopes of finding travel lanes between Lake Ontario and Georgian Bay In 1826 Lieutenant Henry Briscoe became the first white man known to have crossed the middle of Muskoka. David Thompson
David Thompson (explorer)
David Thompson was an English-Canadian fur trader, surveyor, and map-maker, known to some native peoples as "Koo-Koo-Sint" or "the Stargazer"...
drew the first maps of the area in 1837 and possibly camped near present day Beaumaris.
Canada experienced heavy European immigration in the mid-19th century, especially from Ireland which experienced famine in the 1840s. As the land south of the Severn was settled, the government planned to open the Muskoka region further north to settlement. Logging licenses were issued in 1866 which opened Monck Township to logging. The lumber industry expanded rapidly denuding huge tracts of the area, but also prompting the development of road and water transportation. The railroad pushed north to support the industry, reaching Gravenhurst in 1875 and Bracebridge in 1885. Road transportation took the form of the Muskoka Colonization Road, begun in 1858 and reaching Bracebridge in 1861. The road was roughly hewn from the woods and was of corduroy construction, meaning logs were placed perpendicular to the route of travel to keep carriages from sinking in the mud and swamps. Needless to say this made for extremely rugged travel. The lumbering industry spawned a number of ancillary developments, including as mentioned, transport, but also settlements began springing up to supply the workers and Bracebridge, (formerly North Falls) saw some leather tanning businesses develop. Tanners used the bark from lumber to tan hides thereby using what otherwise would be a waste product.
The passages of the Free Grants and Homestead Act of 1868 brought opened the era of widespread settlement to Muskoka. Settlers could receive free land if they agreed to clear the land, have at least 15 acres (60,702.9 m²) under cultivation, and build a 16 by 20 feet (6.1 m) house. Settlers under the Homestead Act, however, found the going hard. Clearing 15 acres (60,702.9 m²) of dense forest is a huge task, but once the land was clear they were greeted with Muskoka's ubiquitous rocks, which themselves had to be cleared. The soil in the region turned out to be poorly suited to farming consisting largely of a dense clay. As news of the difficult conditions spread back to the south it looked as though development in Muskoka might falter but for a fortuitous development. In a time when the railroads had not yet arrived and road travel was notoriously unreliably and uncomfortable, the transportation king was the steamship. Once a land connection was made to the southern part of the lake in Gravenhurst the logging companies could harvest trees along the entire lakefront with relative ease, so long as they had the means of powering the harvest back to the sawmills in Gravenhurst.
The steamship era
Starting with the Wenonah, Ojibwa for first daughter, in 1866 Cockburn pressed the government to open the entire Muskoka lake system to navigation by installing locks in Port Carling and opening a cut between Lake Rosseau and Lake Joseph at Port Sanfield. The government responded to the call, eager to reinforce development in light of the faltering agricultural plan, and built the big locks in Port Carling in 1871. Now Cockburn's steamers had access to the entire lake system. Through the years he added more ships and when he died in 1905 his Muskoka Navigation Company was the largest of its kind in Canada.
Shortly after the arrival of the steamships the seeds were planted which would grow in the rocky soil as agriculture never would. In 1860 two young men, John Campbell and James Bain Jr made a journey that marked them as perhaps the first tourists in the region. Taking the Northern Railway to lake Simcoe, they took the steamer Emily May up the lake to Orillia, rowed across Lake Couchiching they walked up the Colonization Road to Gravenhurst where they vacationed. They liked what they saw and repeated the journey every year bringing friends and relatives. These early tourist pioneers increased demand for transport services in the region, drawn by excellent fishing, natural beauty, and an air completely free of ragweed providing relief for hay fever sufferers. Early tourists built camps, but were joined by others desiring better accommodations. Farmers who were barely scratching a living from the rocky soil soon found demand for overnight accommodations literally arriving on their doorsteps. Some made the switch quickly and converted to boarding houses and hotels. The first wilderness hotel was built at the head of Lake Rosseau in 1870, called Rosseau House. It was owned by New Yorker W.H. Pratt. The idea caught on and tourists came establishing the tourist industry as the up-and-coming money earner in the 1880s.
The steamship era gave rise to the area's great hotels; Rosseau, Royal Muskoka, Windemere, and Beaumaris. When the railroad reached Gravenhurst in 1875 the area grew rapidly. Travel from Toronto, Pittsburgh, and New York became less a matter of endurance than expenditure. Trains regularly made the run from Toronto to Gravenhurst where travelers and their luggage were transferred to the great steamers of the Muskoka Navigation Co such as the Sagamo. Making regular stops up the lakes, including Bracebridge, Beaumaris, and Port Carling, tourists there could transfer to smaller ships such as the Islander which could reach into smaller ports. The hotels became the centers of vacationers lives which could stretch for weeks or even months in the summer. As families became seasonally established they began building cottages near the hotels; at first simple affairs replicating the rustic environment of the early camps, but later grander including in some cases housing for significant staff. Initially cottagers relied on rowboats and canoes for daily transport and would sometimes row substantial distances. Eventually the era of the steam and gasoline launch came and people relied less on muscle power and more on motors. With the boats came the boathouses, often elaborate structures in their own right mimicking in many cases the look and feel of the main cottage.
The coming of the car
World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
caused a significant dip in the tourist activity for the area and hence the economy. After the war, however, significant advances in the automobile
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
brought demand for improved (paved) roads. These two developments, motorboats and private cars brought greater overall development of the area and spread development out over the lakes. Freed from the ports of call of the steamships, people built cottages farther afield. Demand began dropping for the steamship lines. World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
caused another decline as wartime shortages kept many Americans at home and many Canadians were engaged in war activities. Postwar prosperity brought another boom based around the automobile and the newly affordable fiberglas boat. Suddenly owning a summer cottage became possible not only for the adventurous or the wealthy, but for many in the middle class. The steamship companies retired their boats one by one until the last sailing in the late 1950s.
Aircraft crashes
During World War II a crash into Lake Muskoka occurred involving a Northrop Nomad A-17A, which still contains the remains of British pilot, Peter Campbell, and Canadian pilot, Ted Bates. The pair collided with another Nomad over southern Lake Muskoka and crashed into the lake's icy depths on December 13th, 1940 while searching for another pilot that had gone missing in a snow storm the day before. The other plane they crashed into also plunged into the lake; however, it and its two dead crew members were brought to the surface in 1941, leaving Campbell and Bates behind on the lake's 140 foot bottom.Between 1942 and 1945, at the Muskoka Airport, the Royal Norwegian Air Force
Royal Norwegian Air Force
The Royal Norwegian Air Force is the air force of Norway. It was established as a separate arm of the Norwegian armed forces on 10 November 1944. The RNoAF's peace force is approximately 1,430 employees . 600 personnel also serve their draft period in the RNoAF...
(RNAF) trained Norwegian pilots during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
at what was then called "Little Norway
Little Norway
The Flyvåpnenes Treningsleir , the official name) or "Little Norway" was a Norwegian Army Air Service/Royal Norwegian Air Force training camp in Canada during the Second World War.-Origins:...
". One of the planes from a training mission crashed off of Norway Point, killing the pilot. The aircraft was accidentally recovered by a cable crew snagging the plane in 1960 and the pilot was found inside. For reasons unknown the plane was cut free and fell back to the bottom with the pilot still inside. Authorities are investigating this site as time allows. The RNAF's first fatal accident in Muskoka, and the last one recorded by the FTL in Canada, took place August 1944 when a Fairchild PT-19 Cornell trainer with pilot and student aboard lost its wing and crashed into the ground, south of Gravenhurst; both on board died. The bodies were recovered from the dense undergrowth and a wing section was found, but no wreckage was recovered. Not long after, another Fairchild crashed for the same reason, but both occupants escaped by parachute.
Lake Front Resident Advocacy Group
There are many community groups based on Lake Muskoka. The largest of these is the Muskoka Lakes Association (MLA). The MLA was founded in 1894 to represent the interests of lakeshore residents on Lakes Rosseau, Joseph and Muskoka and many smaller surrounding lakes.Famous cottagers
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