Wayback Wednesday, sponsored by Jamie Lockwood, broker/owner of Sutton Group Muskoka Realty!
This photo taken in the 1940s is of the Naiad, a 68-foot craft built in Toronto in 1890 for Senator William Eli Sanford. It was the first known steam yacht on the Muskoka lakes. Senator Sanford used the yacht to entertain guests at his summer home on Lake Rosseau. Guests aboard included Prime Minister John Sparrow David Thompson and Lord and Lady Aberdeen.
In this photo, it is being moved from the Gravenhurst wharf to Lake of Bays for the Peck family of Illinois. Note the Linn tractor being used with the horses to pull the load. (From Muskoka Digital Archives).
Do you have interesting photos to share of days gone by? We’d love to see them! Email: [email protected]
See more Wayback Wednesday photos HERE.
Don’t miss out on Doppler!
Sign up here to receive our email digest with links to our most recent stories.
Local news in your inbox three times per week!
Click here to support local news
Naiads: goddesses of fresh water. But this one is on one heck of an overland trek; from Gravenhurst to Baysville. Behind horses and a Linn tractor. And the journey was made. Was there any doubt?
I often thought of writing about all the stuff that got hauled around back in the day. Some of the tasks were memorable but the locals just carried on. ‘Just do it!’ before the expression became famous.
Peck wanted his boat on the Lake of Bays. Likely taking his cue from C. O. Shaw who decided he didn’t want both the Algonquin and the Iroquois on the big lake. So the Algonquin was fitted to some skids and towed across to Peninsula Lake on the Portage rail tracks, through the snow. It broke the big boats back, but some jury rigging and she served a good long life.
Benjamin Cottrill went to the Lake of Bays for his new tug the Nishka. Again, in the winter. Tie it to some skis and harness up the team. Cottrill got his boat across safely and the Nishka was the last tug the lumber company would operate.
Some of my ancestors towed things around their properties, deciding something shouldn’t be there. but it should be over here. Part of the old Johnson house on North Mary Lake road was towed from it’s original site to a new one. I was told the old log part was left, but the part made of flat-sawn was moved. And later, moved again! Hard to decide where it should go.
From my wife’s radio show you can hear how an old Methodist Church that once stood where the United Church is today, was jacked up, set on logs, and rolled over to High Street. The first of the ‘holy rollers’?
When we moved to Lancelot Road, it seemed strange that two adjacent barns were oriented as they were. Howcum? Because the one was originally over there and they pulled it over here. I was also told that one of the houses along the road never started life where it is now. It’s a nice house from somewhere else. Sitting were an old mill once was.
But time, flat-sawn lumber, nails and spent energy were of value to those people. Any way you could save and reuse any of it, it was worth the effort.
“So. You want your building over there?”
“Yeah! Near the other one over there.”
“Well. Hook ‘er up.”
Love Wayback Wednesday. Would it be possible to give thumbnail account of dateand/or story?