Wayback Wednesday, sponsored by Jamie Lockwood, broker/owner of Sutton Group Muskoka Realty!
From Friends of Algonquin Park on their Facebook page: Men and horses stand on Highway 60 which extends in the distance (note the pile of logs on the left created by clearing the route of trees); c. 1934 – 1936. APPAC, 2021.18.36. Estate of Janet Ivel (Hughes) Gurr. [cropped]
Building Highway 60 in Algonquin Park — From 1934 to 1936, road crews cleared, drilled, blasted, and dragged debris, to eventually fill and level this new highway. Learn more about this enormous effort and the people who worked on these crews in the latest Algonquin Provincial Park Archives and Collections blog at https://www.algonquinpark.on.ca/…/algonquin-park…
Do you have interesting photos to share of days gone by? We’d love to see them! Email: [email protected]
See more Wayback Wednesday photos HERE.
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My Dad always referred to the 30’s, the years in which the road was built, as the ‘dirty thirties’ or the ‘hungry 30’s’. Hard times. He was only 13 when he went north to work in a region of Ontario that was roaring with activity. So he never worked on the Depression Era make work project that built Hwy. 60.
But we sure drove that road in later years. Likely about 1950 or so when a lot of guys from Huntsville were still working on various projects that were opening the park for the new tourist that were arriving in droves. By car! We generally had a car, ‘though we were often between cars, or BC. I think we had a ’36 Buick the summer I’m remembering.
But in those days, people helped each other. Lots of locals had no vehicle and if you were a relative or friend, my Dad could often be talked into making the run into the park. So we got to make the run to get friends and relatives back to work. It was great! Especially if we got away late and had to stay overnight. Headlights not being what they are today.
There was a photo of little cabins in Huntsville recently on ‘Way Back’, and it was just such a cabin we got to stay in. I seem to think it was at Killarney Lodge, though I can’t be certain. But I can still remember the creak and slam of the screen doors on the other sites. And seeing the flash and sway of lanterns in the night.
I learned early it was better to bundle up and sleep on the floor under the edge of a bed than on an upper bunk. The temperature on that level could boil eggs. And in the morning we would be away early, and I do mean early because Dad needed to get himself to work.
Funny the things that stay with you through the years. And how much the times have changed.
My mom used to travel by train to camp
in the park, in and around this era.. She told me a story of hitch hiking on 60 a few years after it was built.