The Allure of Muskoka

MUSKOKA HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE ALLURE, BRACEBRIDGE THE HOME TOWN

G.H.O. THOMAS WROTE ABOUT BRACEBRIDGE OF 1884 - BUT PENNED ELOQUENTLY ABOUT ITS PLACE IN MUSKOKA

     I was once again chased out of my studio setting, at our Gravenhurst music and antique shop, for some special guests, so I had to retreat home to Birch Hollow, and a chair on the front verandah, where I've been sitting for the past two hours. We are across from a wonderful little urban oasis, known with considerable affection, as "The Bog," and it is lively today. It is what I so enjoy about living and working in this beautiful district of Muskoka. There are hundreds of birds singing and chattering all around me here, this portal onto fern, forest and lowland. There are the sounds of squirrels thrashing from leafy bough to bough, and the country crows are cawing off to my right. The wind is washing through the full maples and thick, and thriving evergreens, and just now, several children rode by on their bikes, laughing and cracking their pedals; and how pleasant it all sounds to a writer, displaced from his usual digs. It is pleasant, and it does influence my writing. Muskoka influences us all, but we often don't think about it, and it doesn't come up in general conversation. Going back in history, many pioneer writers knew that such a rough topography, its huge watershed, and severe winters, hot summers, and bugs, would affect the way they lived, and how they prospered on respective homesteads. Even today, we are influenced by the hinterland, whether we choose to believe it or not. Today, at this precise moment, I am so pleased to be a part of this amazing scene, and feel fortunate I don't have to leave at the end of a vacation. And by the way, my vacations are spent in Muskoka. Much of it is spent on this verandah overlooking Birch Hollow and The Bog.

     "The end of winter reminds me I have lived in Bracebridge through fifty winters, (1884-1934) and a glance about town, assures me very few of my fellow townsmen have. This set me wondering whether Gazette (Thomas family owned Bracebridge Gazette) readers might be interested in a word picture of their home town as it then was. It is not easy to go back fifty years and be sure that no part of the picture of the intervening past, has not entered into it. In my case, I have seen Bracebridge change from the frontier village of fifty years ago, to the modern, sedate town of today (circa 1934). It may be, then, that slight chronological errors may creep into this story."

     I have always enjoyed reading, especially at intervals when I become uninspired, the insightful heritage notes made by former teacher, publisher G.H.O. Thomas, and his son, Redmond Thomas Q.C., who both wrote columns, at times, for the Bracebridge Gazette. Redmond wrote one of the best Bracebridge histories ever penned, known as "Reminiscences," because much of it is anecdotal. He was an exceptional story-teller, and he included social / cultural history, which often times, is excluded from some of the more detailed, factual, chronological histories. Redmond, and G.H.O. Thomas, put some color onto the black and white sketches, of town history. What draws me back to this Gazette history, which I acquired quite a few years ago, written by the elder Thomas, is that Muskoka is a fascination to him, and this aspect of nature, isn't excluded in what he determines as the town's chronicle. The editorial work of both G.H.O. Thomas, and Redmond Thomas, coincide with my own feelings about our region, and the development of our communities; as proportional to the environment and landscape. Our pioneer communities were influenced by nature, in this huge hinterland, but it is often omitted in tightly written histories, which I have always considered a tremendous shortfall of relevant information. The facts are important, but they are not the end-all. What roll did our geographic location, and topographical realities have on the community, that evolved, along the shoreline, and up the hillside, of the dark flowing Muskoka River? 

    Bracebridge, and all the other towns, villages and hamlets, of Muskoka, were profoundly influenced by the geography, environment and shortage of arable land; while impacted heavily by the reality, Muskoka was one of the accessible, and accommodating regions in the most populated province of Canada. For hunters and anglers initially, vacationers following close behind. Bracebridge, like other Muskoka communities, learned quickly, that the hardships of the frontier, and immense difficulties of homestead economy, could be supplemented, with the new tourism interest. Even as far back as the 1870's, tourism had become a minor economic interest, and homesteaders were often asked to take-in sportsmen, as lodgers, during their stay in the region. It became obvious, tourist accommodation was needed, and although the conversion of industries, from logging to tourism, took time to evolve, by the time Mr. Thomas had arrived in Muskoka, economic changes were favoring tourism, in significant increments, year by year. So Mr. Thomas gives considerable credit to the region, for its natural allure, which helped the early settlements progress and expand their economic base. The navigable waterways helped immeasurably, the fledgling economy take hold, and eventually, prosper with early industrial diversity. Logging, tanneries, Woollen Mill, agriculture and transportation. Tourism became the unexpected bonus, of improving transportation, and the availability of provisions.

     I like his work, because it reflects in so many interesting ways,  my own interest in our region. When someone asks me what it's like to live in Muskoka, I never base a response, entirely on my passion for a "rural" lifestyle. In many ways, and although I also like the idea of progress and diversity in the local economy, I often think our regional governance has forgotten, to some degree, the importance of maintaining and conserving a healthy environment. Tourism, as the region's number one industry, depends on the health and well being of the natural qualities of the lakeland. There has been an intrusive arrogance, about economic development and urban sprawl, such that protecting the nature of our region, has, to some of our movers and shakers, become a lesser concern. If the hinterland is compromised, it will change the nature of our tourist economy. The cottagers and day travellers who honor us with their regular trips to Muskoka, do not come here for what they can secure in the urban areas, where they have a permanent residence. They undoubtedly see enough urban sprawl elsewhere, and don't wish to see it encumbering the present wilds of our district. There is a passage written by Mr. Thomas, that I often quote, that points out, as far back as 1884, just how important it was to appreciate the natural surroundings, and its inherent beauty, as it related to the whole Muskoka experience; whether you were a seasonal visitor or a new homesteader, looking to farm this rocky, boggy, and heavily treed region of frontier Ontario. Nature had to be dealt with, in all its excesses, from early winters, heavy snows, frigid temperatures, to the rainy springs, and bug infested summers. Yet there was something compelling about the nature of Muskoka, that kept families here for generations; just as there are still descendants of the Thomas family still working and residing in the town today.

     "Before attempting to give you a picture of Bracebridge of fifty years ago, it might be in order to give a summary of its history prior to that time. Men are somewhat like fish; fish want to get as far up stream as the can, to begin family life; men want to get as far up country as possible. The spirit of adventure attracts some; hope of better things urges others. At any rate we find men always pushing into unknown regions. Muskoka was a rough, unbroken forest, when adventurers got as far as the unbridged river at North Falls, the present site of Bracebridge. Odd ones got this far even in 1861, but settlement was only beginning in earnest in 1866. When A.P. Cockburn built the Wenonah, and brought his good ship to Bracebridge in 1866, 'there were not more than twenty people to welcome her.' Yet in 1872 Bracebridge had a population of five hundred. Steamboats had much to do with the making of Bracebridge. Settlers were coming and going on, up country. With the advent of the Wenonah, and shortly afterwards, the Waubamik, all summer travel was by water to Bracebridge, head of navigation."

     The newspaper columnist writes, "Bracebridge was a forbidding place to build a town. It was one of the roughest spots in the district. But the necessity of changing from boat, to overland conveyance, just naturally made for business in Bracebridge. In 1878, the steamer 'Northern' was launched at Port Sydney, giving water transportation to all parts adjacent to Vernon, Fairy and Peninsula lakes. Next year the 'Dean' gave similar service on Lake of Bays. Settlers poured in; business boomed in Bracebridge. Buildings went up almost overnight. By 1878, the village had two newspapers, 269 children of school age, a Mechanics' Institute with public library, a Fire Company (department), with 50 volunteer members, who wear handsome uniforms, a powerful hand (pump) fire engine, a lofty bell tower, a Winter Amusement Society, Masonic Lodge, Orange Lodge, Cricket Club, Bowling Alley, Billiard Rooms, Agricultural Society for Muskoka and Parry Sound, five churches, several Temperance Societies, two hardware stores, six general stores, seven groceries, a drug store, a photographic gallery, three bakers, three butchers, tailors, two milliners, six dressmakers, a watchmaker, a cooper, five tinsmiths, seven painters, twenty-six carpenters, four wheelwrights, ten blacksmiths, six printers, five lawyers, and three editors. There were three wagon shops and two tanneries. So, you see, Bracebridge was no insignificant village in 1878."

     As the author notes, "But really, I started out to tell what Bracebridge looked like in 1884, and had better get back to my job. My first twenty years were spent chiefly in Victoria County, except when studying in Hamilton and Toronto. That stretch of Ontario from Lindsay to Toronto was all with which I had any familiarity. There was no Sunday motoring (by horse and buggy) then into regions 150 miles away. It was an event to go to a celebration ten miles from home. You readers have grown up in motor cars. You know what all parts of the country are like. Fifty years ago (1884) it was so different. You know that in the territory of my boyhood experiences, there is nothing but one hundred percent country. Level, fertile fields and orchards, straight roads, square fields, prosperous farms, villages, towns and cities. Until I came to Muskoka, at the age of twenty, I had never seen a rock or an unfenced bush. That's probably accounts for the vivid impression remaining after fifty years."

     "It was a warm, bright day in August 1884, that I left the train at Muskoka Wharf, to take a boat Bracebridge. The trip from Orillia to Gravenhurst, had a depressing effect. Instead of the fertile fields down home, I had come through what seemed endless miles of rocks and tangled forest, for even that time, all bush in that stretch, had been robbed of its timber. and left in horrible condition, in which many parts of our forest lands are still being left. Fires had followed lumbermen, and left bare rocks with charred tree trunks, in desolate confusion over them. At school in Toronto, that year, one of my classmates came from Barrie, and the other boys used to kid him about it. 'Isn't Barrie in Muskoka?' they would say, and laugh about it. And in a few short weeks afterward, I was coming to live in Muskoka. As I passed through those rocks with charred dead trees, how glad I was that my engagement was for four months only."

     Mr. Thomas reports of his boat trip, "At Muskoka Wharf, the scene changed. There was the beautiful stretch of water, the trim boats, (Kenozha and Nipissing), gay tourists, and all around the hum and bustle of sawmills. They told me there were over a dozen sawmills around the bay. The trip up the lake was enchanting. Never had I seen or imagined anything so beautiful. In those days the pilot houses were kind of down among the passengers, rather than secluded and unapproachably aloof, as they are now. Somehow acquainted with Captain Henry, on that trip, and it seemed to me we were always intimately acquainted from that day. Then suddenly the Kenozha turned into the river mouth (Muskoka River). On both sides dense forest. Again the feeling of depression but the feeling of gladness that the contract (as a teacher) was for four months only; and I vowed I would stick it for that time, if there was nothing but bush life in the interval. We are so familiar with Muskoka Lake, and the river mouth, that we hardly realize the surprise a visitor has when he first turns into the river. Earliest Bracebridge pioneers came overland. John Bell, however, came by water in 1861. He knew of the existence of the river but it took him five days paddling, along the shores, before he found it.

     "The depression didn't last. I got watching the marvelous shadows in the black water. You have often watched those shadows haven't you? Surely there is nothing like it anywhere else. In the water, deep down in the water, away under the land, are trees and hills and sky. Then rolling waves gently heave the trees, until the tops of one grove meet the tops of a similar grove, and they gradually merge into one grove, to be followed by other trees, shrubs and hills, kissing tips, and gradually growing into each other. Then in the water came a farm house, and barn, with cattle grazing in cultivated fields, natural but upside down. Then leaving shadows for reality, I found the Kenozha plowing a beautiful river, with fertile fields, and good farm homes on both sides. Yes, Muskoka River in 1884 was very much like it is now. The tannery, then a tall wooden building, was the signal that Bracebridge was reached. In a few minutes, the Kenozha tied up at the wharf. The wharf at that time, was on the point, opposite the present Motor Camp (Kelvin Grove Park, below Bracebridge Falls). Here all was a bustle. Busses for the various hotels, were there to meet passengers. Wharf Master, Andrew Harvey, was there to attend to freight. Quite a large freight house stood there, and from the boat came barrels, boxes, crates of all sizes that piled the freight shed high. It was surely a busy place."

     To get to Bracebridge, most passengers, including homesteaders, had to pass along the winding length of the Muskoka River with all its inherent enchantments. Not as wide, long, and deep, as the historic Hudson River Valley, in New York, made famous by revered American author Washington Irving, but the scenic Muskoka River did lead to a sort of "Sleepy Hollow;" the picturesque smoke-filled village perched high on the hillside, neatly above the sparkling cataract of North Falls. The title "Bracebridge," was the name chosen for the hamlet Post Office, by William Dawson LeSueur, of the federal postal authority, in 1864, inspired by Washington Irving's book "Bracebridge Hall," originally published in 1822. LeSueur, also a literary critic, and Canadian historian, when not working for the civil service, had also named Gravenhurst, two years earlier (1862), after a book written by British author / historian, William Henry Smith, being "Gravenhurst; or Thoughts on Good and Evil."