It’s Wayback Wednesday, sponsored by Jamie Lockwood, broker/owner of Sutton Group Muskoka Realty!
In this undated photo, Dennis Hutcheson flies off of the Mica Mine ski jump. In 1948, Dennis won the Ontario Zone Championship.
The Mica Mine ski jump was opened for Huntsville’s 1934 winter carnival, and was billed as the “largest, longest and steepest ski jump in Ontario”. It was 170-feet long and jumpers could reach speeds of 70 miles an hour. It dropped off so abruptly that skiers couldn’t see its bottom from the top of the tower.
The Huntsville Ski Club built the tower as well as a clubhouse at the bottom of the run where spectators could warm up.
There was indeed once a mica mine on this hill. In the early 1900s, Dr. Casselman made Huntsville home. One of his hobbies was studying geology. On the southeast face of the hill overlooking Fairy Lake he found both feldspar and mica, minerals in demand at the time: feldspar was used for paints and enamelware, mica for insulation and the windows in stove doors. Dr. Casselman built a shack at the top of the hill to store tools and dynamite, and constructed a cable and pulley system to send it to lakeside where it was picked up by a scow and delivered to the train station. The mine, and the ski jump, have both long since been abandoned.
Photo and details courtesy of Huntsville: With Spirit and Resolve.
See more Wayback Wednesday photos here.
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