Wayback Wednesday, sponsored by Jamie Lockwood, broker/owner of Sutton Group Muskoka Realty!
This photo of Burk’s Falls was posted on the Almaguin Highlands Vintage Photography Facebook site by admin Andrew Hind, the author of Founded on Stone: Tales of Early Parry Sound District. Hind explains that one of the chapters in his book discusses the history of the tanbark harvest and the region’s two tanneries —one in Parry Sound and the other in Burk’s Falls.
This 1917 photo of Burk’s Falls shows the tannery 19 years after Robert James Watson founded it and five years before it closed.
“There are some great details here. You can see a steamboat plying the Magnetawan River, perhaps having just made a delivery of tanbark or hides. Stacks of tanbark can be seen in the foreground. The scale of the operation is also obvious – it was a considerable industry.
What no photo can convey is the stench. Tanneries were smelly, the air thick with animal grease and chemicals,” writes Hind.
See more Wayback Wednesday photos HERE.
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