Wayback Wednesday, sponsored by Jamie Lockwood, broker/owner of Sutton Group Muskoka Realty!
Memorial Park in Huntsville, Ontario. Swimming and camping facilities at the mouth of the Muskoka River and Fairy Lake at the base of Lookout Mountain, circa 1923.
From Muskoka Digital Archives, a project of the Huntsville Public Library and Bracebridge Public Library in cooperation with the Muskoka Parry Sound Genealogy Group.
Charles E. Paget spearheaded a fundraising effort in the spring of 1922 to purchase the property for a new park, which opened on July 2, 1923, as a memorial to the men who had died in the Great War. In 1923, the council formed a parks commission to look after the park under the chairmanship of Charles E. Paget.
In 1924, the Parks Commission purchased the point at the north of the river with a view to establishing a safe bathing beach and a scenic driveway along the river. In 1925, a road was constructed, a new kitchen was built, and campsites were established for motorists. In 1926, a lookout was opened on the mountain. By July 1929, six furnished cabins had been added to the park, and the navigation company had erected a new dock.
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I’m sure there are those who can affix specific dates to a lot of what I remember, but I can’t. I can’t remember the dates that Cam Bell, our high school gym teacher, had us run through the old camp kitchen area. To run around that cursed mountain. The pitch up from the lake end was steep and even young, fit lungs struggled for air. Those were high school years, so the early 60’s.
I remember going to the ‘camp kitchen’ when relatives from the south would camp or rent there. When they came visiting in Huntsville. From Orillia, Toronto, Detroit or Battle Creek. How, when we would go over for a cook out, it was entertaining to look over the vehicles parked about. Marveling at where the American plates were from. Where in heck is Tippecanoe and Indiana? Those years were the late 40’s and 50’s.
My Gramps would tell us all stories about what had happened ‘”just over there” or “just where that boathouse is.” And how the old steamer ‘Northern’ had been stripped of it’s gear and scuttled just out past the point. Some said that there was good fishing in around the old hull. Tell us how the Algonquin had to keep the speed down and it’s wake to a minimum while on the river. That boat must have drawn attention as it passed on it’s comings and goings. How the big boat had to be cautious of the logs of the Whiteside Lumber company. The mill was at the big corner near Brunel Rd. and Park Drive. Those were musings of his early years.
I recall there becoming a kerfuffle over the very existence of the ‘camp kitchen’. Some of the owners of local cottages and lodges began to complain that the town, who owned the site, was in competition with them and it was unfair. And then the camping was gone. Picnic if you will, but no overnighting.
There was always the claim that some guys could throw a beer bottle into the river from the look out. Completely over the kitchen. Not me I know. But does anyone know for sure?