Welcome to Wayback Wednesday sponsored by Cavalcade Color Lab! Every week, we’ll be sharing a vintage photo and asking our readers to chime in with anything you can recall about the photo, other related memories, or even a funny caption. Have some vintage photos of your own? Send them to [email protected] and we may share them with our readers!
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Wayback Wednesday is sponsored by Cavalcade Color Lab
This is the steamship Algonquin docking (or so we thought – see the comments below for another take on it) at the train station in Huntsville. Doppler readers guessed that this photo was taken between 1910 and 1940 (circa 1920s is the date we have), while others provided some additional information:
David Johns: The Algonquin about to dock at the Station Wharf to pick up train passengers to take them to their destinations. The big one of course, Bigwin Inn. It would have stopped previously at Bigwin Farms and Laundry dock, right across from the Tannery.
Craig MacDonald: Although I’m not entirely sure, while the prop is obviously in reverse, I notice both the flow lines off the left bumpers where there is less disturbance from the prop and the flow line off the bow as seen by the distortion of reflection of the boat. Both seem to indicate that the boat might actually be moving backwards leaving the dock with the rudder deflected hard right. With forward motion, there would be no forward flow line from the bow. Sorry, too many years on the water! [Thanks, Craig — keen observation!]
Lucille Frith: The steamship Algonquin plied the waters between Huntsville and Peninsula Lake – not Lake of Bays. Perhaps you meant it delivered passengers and goods to the Portage Flyer – our little train that took passengers and goods over the hill to Lake of Bays where they boarded another steamer to their destination. [Indeed!] This comment is based on the tracks in the foreground of the main picture, indicating it was a railroad dock. Truly enjoy your photos on Doppler.
Mike Stevens: I think that is Art Silverwood’s farm house in the background behind the Algonquin on Hunters Bay. The farmhouse is still there, with a lot of other houses. Deane Murdy built one of the first big homes on the bay. This photo is before that. My guess is 1940s.
Thanks for your comments, everyone!
This is definitely the Silverwood farm on the left side of the frame and that hill of forest is Bildsons Mountain, highway 11 is build over the river there now. Falcon Rd curves around that hillside out to on of Huntsville first settlers John Bildson.
You will find more about the Bildson family in Joe Cooksons book “ The Muskoka Story” out of print. Lucky for us the Town library has a copy.
The skiiers are the Muskoka Loppet for sure. Probably in the 80’s.
As to location, they are going down the hill and onto the lake so it is not the start at Port Sydney. They must be coming down onto Peninsula Lake to reach the finish line which was I think at either Hidden Valley or Deerhurst.