It’s Wayback Wednesday, sponsored by Jamie Lockwood, broker/owner of Sutton Group Muskoka Realty!
In this 1920s photo, a group of skaters takes a break on the old Station Wharf on Hunters Bay. Skaters would sometimes skate as far as Hoodstown on Lake Vernon, or even to Bigwin Inn on Lake of Bays, if ice conditions were favourable.
It wasn’t the only ice-related pastime on Hunters Bay. There were speed competitions, with Huntsville skaters challenging their counterparts in Bracebridge and Gravenhurst. And at one time, a mile-long track was cleared on the bay for harness racing, with horses coming from Cobalt, New Liskeard, and Haileybury to compete.
In the summer months, the wharf was where the steamer Algonquin once docked for passengers to connect with the train.
Photo and details courtesy of Huntsville: With Spirit and Resolve.
See more Wayback Wednesday photos here.
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Brian Tapley makes a real good point about the downtown. A few years ago we had friends up here from Hartford Connecticut and on Sat, they decided they would like to go into town so away we went. As it turned out it was the day of the sidewalk sale and our friends thought it was just great walking up and down visiting all the little stores. But the thing I remember most was my friend saying to me after we had made a trip all the way down the street he turned to me and said where are all the cops if this was down home there would be a cop every couple of feet LOL But it turned out to be the highlight of their visit.
It would have had to be real special conditions to skate to Hoodstown. Clear ice and with little snow or crust. I was told of it being like that once on Fairy Bay, where the river leaves the lake. Dave Lupton was capable of stopping most pucks fired at him, but when he missed…. that little piece of rubber went on and on. The game ended early.
In the early 60’s we had ‘Dice on Ice’ at Rotary Beach and I drove my Dad’s Studebaker truck out to watch, cab and box full of people. The Austin Mini and the Volkswagon racers were unbeatable.
Some years later the races were on Penn Lake at Hidden Valley (what wasn’t at Hidden Valley in the 60’s?)
I had a ’56 Monarch and we went out on the ice in that. Get going as fast as you could and then crank the wheel hard. Do double-yolkers ’til everything stops and then do it again. I know there are still people around who remember those little episodes. Entertainment was easy to come by and we didn’t have to have a power outlet or batteries to keep us running. Maybe two tons of V8 powered steel, but hey!
They used to haul an old car body out onto the ice near the narrows and then sell tickets. If your ticket recorded the time closest to when that old junker went to the bottom, you were a winner!
Now days I see ice as being cold and slippery. And damn hard. Where is that sand?
Happy New Year everybody.
It is a bit sad how our society is so quick to dump “yesterday” for the unsure promises of “tomorrow”.
Indeed, some improvements are actually improvements but often, the things we discard, tear down and replace with a “modern” replacement, well some of them would be worth a lot if they had been preserved.
The trick, and we are not that good at it as a society, it to figure out what “old stuff” is just junk an deserves the application of a big yellow piece of machinery to make it flat and ready for something new and what other old stuff would be a big attraction if we preserved it. The cost to preserve sometimes seems high initially but as time goes by these numbers often take on a new meaning and what seemed like a crazy cost 30 years ago starts to look like a bargain today.
If, for example, we had kept the Portage Railway on it’s original site at the Portage and somehow managed to restore a couple of the old steam boats, can you just imagine the attraction this would be today? The way the Portage area, mostly just a few ghostly memories and some private dwellings now, might have turned out if the train had kept running. The stream of tourists who ride the Portage Flyer at the Heritage Place now would be that much more if it was on it’s original site, preforming the original function and hooked to some actual steam boats. But it is way too late for this now.
If you think about the places you may have gone for vacations over the years, I’m willing to bet that the locations that you remember may not all be the modern, streets that city planners put in place as the daily replacements for the old. Huntsville’s new and improved main street is good and in a few years when some trees grow it will be better but many places I remember visiting did not have the benefit of modern city planning. Those tiny towns with narrow roads, goofy little shops and a unique situation around every corner are the ones I remember most. Not the ones with the most modern cityscapes. Many modern ones seem a bit sterile and unfriendly compared to the old.
There is always the problem of capacity however and although we might like to keep some things the “way they were” the problem is that the past is simply no longer the situation that exists. It has gone into history in most cases. When you crowd many times as many people into an area the old commercial areas simply cannot handle it. Only a few areas have successfully managed to keep a significant amount of the old along with and integrated into the new necessities of life.
Huntsville has solved some of these issues by moving a lot of the actual commerce out of the old downtown area to places like the mall and Walmart area. While these are not what I’d call “attractions” they serve their purpose and maybe by pulling people away from the old area downtown they might actually be saving some of it.
WE need to remember that, although efficient, one McDonalds or Horton’s or Metro or Winners looks and works much the same as all the rest and is hardly a reason to travel to an area. It is the more unique, sometimes smaller businesses that we seem to like to visit, looking for that unique or special time, meal or item to take home.
These photos from the past help to remind us of this fact.
Worth thinking about before we toss something else, some older building maybe, on the scrap heap. Take a little time to let things work out and see what can be saved and reused.
I remember when they finally burnt this down I was sad. It’s just another one of those things the town gets rid of instead of fixing, and looking to the future.
I love seeing these Wayback Wednesdays!! Thank you, Doppler, and Jamie Lockwood!
I recognise some of these old Huntsville faces, including my Dad (Harold Briggs) and his great buddy Jimmy Kellock. I am in tears of nostalgia!!!