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!
Scroll down to see last week’s photo.
In this week’s photo, we share an entertaining way to enjoy winter. Do you know where these revellers were headed or any of the history behind their means of transportation? (Photo courtesy of Muskoka Digital Archives)
Wayback Wednesday is sponsored by Cavalcade Color Lab
Last week we shared this photo of the Portage Flyer with you:
Nancy Long shared on Facebook: “That girl could be my godmother. She lived there …”
Also on Facebook, Cindy Dwayne Bucholtz said, “My mother has memories of the men getting off the train at the hill to help push the train to the top…she recalls jumping off to pick raspberries and having lots of time to jump back on…she still lives on Rat Bay road. Anyone know for sure who the girl in the photo is?? I’m gonna say the photo was taken mid 50s say 1956?
On Doppler, Dave Johns said, “The two smaller steam engines. It took two of them to make it up the steep grades. I’ll go with 1930.
Warren Prince shared: “Was on that train with my grandparents circa 1949.”
Judy Pearson ventured: “I would guess 1951 or 52.”
Joy Salmon Moon said, “The only way to get to my great grandparents and my great aunts and great uncles and cousins at Fox Point Lake of Bays from 1928 to 1956.”
And Brian Tapley said, “I think it stopped running about 1959 so I’m going to guess early to mid 50’s say 1954. If I remember correctly it used to run front first from South Portage to a sort of Y at North portage where it reversed and backed out onto the dock. It then ran in reverse over the portage for the return trip so it was backed out onto the dock again. This way the heavy locomotives were never on the dock, just the cars.”
Thanks for your guesses and memories, everyone! The photo is from 1939 at North Portage, Penninsula Lake. The girl is Joy MacKay.
Sure looks like a train so I concur with Marg Wood.
There is not a cell phone or ipod in sight so the 30’s sounds about right.
Also, even though these folks are woefully “out of touch” with society by not having a smart phone and lacking a GPS co-ordinate one has to notice that they all seem happy!
This could be The Ski Train- from Toronto to Huntsville – to stay and ski at Limberlost for the weekend. I remember my parents, Isabel & Andy Kellock, telling us about it and they would join the group at Limberlost. Could be Circa 1930’s!