THE MUSKOKA COLONIZATION ROAD: Tree Stumps and Ridges and Dirt, Oh My!

ByLee Ann

When we drive almost anywhere in the world today, we do so expecting good roads. Paved roads, ones that have been engineered for safety, with curves that are easy to negotiate. We are affronted by pot-holes and cracks in the asphalt. We expect that obstacles like rivers, undeveloped land or rock ridges are removed or bridged so we can get to where we are going as quickly and easily as possible.  Roads for the most part are straight, level and paved.

Until the 1930s, The Muskoka Colonization Road was anything but. Rivers and lakes, when they couldn’t be avoided, were crossed by simple wooden bridges that tended to sway alarmingly and get washed out in spring floods. Settlers hacked the road out of very dense forest, chopping down trees where the surveyors’ chains marked the route. They left the tree stumps to rot, which made for a pockmarked obstacle course that was often easier for people to walk through than for horses to pull a wagon through. There was no engineering at the time that could cut through a granite ridge, so the road went over or around these – often, since granite ridges are as plentiful as mosquitoes in Muskoka.

Here’s a view of Highway 11 just north of the Severn Bridge, heading north.

See how the rock-cut makes the road nice and flat for the cars? When you’re speeding along this stretch of the highway, almost at the cottage, I bet you don’t even notice the rock-cut. Which is too bad, because it’s gorgeous. But it’s also a feat of engineering that would stun the average Muskoka pioneer. That poor person had to haul all his belongings up the ridge and down the other side. At this exact spot – the southern boundary of the Muskoka District and near the official start of the Muskoka Road – the ridge is over 15 metres high.

No wonder hundreds of potential settlers took one look and turned around!

CENSUS INFORMATION: 1871 and 2011

ByLee Ann
Spring in my Garden

It’s spring, and the government’s mind turns to: census-taking! That’s true in 2011 and was the same in 1871. The census is of course a great source of data for a researcher like me. The census has also recently been controversial – the Chief Statistician resigned over the government’s decision to shorten the census this year and make part of it voluntary.

This week I filled out the 2011 census – online, a very cool option – and also spent time in the 1871 census of Muskoka. I noticed a few interesting differences between the two census questionnaires. Which I suppose is to be expected as they’re 140 years apart. 

For instance, we no longer ask everyone how many acres they have under crop. Or what livestock or how many carriages they own. Or if anyone in the household is “deaf, dumb, blind or of unsound mind.” Questions about “Daily Living” do form part of the “National Household Survey” (the optional part of the 2011 census,) although the method of questioning about that kind of thing is now much more polite: “Does this person have any difficulty hearing, seeing, communicating, walking, climbing stairs, bending, learning or doing any similar activities?”

The question of religion is not part of the 2011 short form census. Nor is ‘profession, occupation, or trade’. Nor is ethnic background.

Marital status has gotten quite a bit more complicated. In 1871 you were either single, married or widowed. In 2011, you could be:

  • never legally married
  • legally married (and not separated)
  • separated (but still legally married)
  • divorced
  • widowed… OR (asked in a separate question)
  • living with a common-law partner.

In 1871 there was no question about what language you spoke – fascinating for a country of immigrants. Speaking of which, I’m researching the 1871 census records of two immigrant families:

  1. The Simintons of Morrison township. They were among the very first settlers along the Muskoka Road and had been singled out in the Provincial Land Agent’s 1859 report as being “particularly intelligent and industrious.” I think by 1871 they had abandoned their land and fled to Manitoba.
  2. Ira Fetterley of Chaffey township. I found only one reference that specifies the Muskoka Road ended at his farm in 1865. All others say it ended somewhere in the vicinity of Lake Vernon. I would much rather learn about Ira Fetterley and use his story to talk about the end of the road! So I am hoping the enumerator made some kind of reference to the government road in a note on the Fetterley record.

That is another difference, 140 years later: there is no place to make a note!

MUSKOKA: Then and Now

ByLee Ann

This week I slammed up against some contrasts and realizations about Muskoka. Funny how that happened.

I was revising Chapter 3, which means I was deep in the 1860s of Muskoka and its first white settlers. The gruelling business of hacking out a place to live in a boreal forest. Scratching in seed around massive tree stumps that would take seven years to rot before they could be dug out of the ground.  Creating through strength of will and muscle some fledgling communities.

Then one evening, I turned to my latest issue of Muskoka Magazine to relax. This monthly periodical shares updates on what’s happening in the region, plus profiles on “Muskoka lifestyles.” Full-page colour ads for contractors who build exquisite lakeside getaways.  Villas available for fractional ownership. Festivals, cottage décor trends, and recreation options in communities mature enough to have a Heritage Foundation.

Slam.

Is this even the same place? Well, of course it is. But at the same time, a different world.

In the 1860s and 70s, people were trying to make Muskoka into something it is not. From a raw wilderness of forest, lakes and rock, white settlers came and tried to tame it into farmland, neatly organized into 100 acre lots. And for a while it seemed to work. In the early 1860s the farmers along the Muskoka Road produced an astonishing amount of crops, even in the worst soil Morrison Township had to offer. But once the forest’s thin layer of humus had been depleted, the farmers were left staring at the impenetrable granite of the Canadian Shield.

Thankfully, today, we aren’t doing that any more. We found out the hard way that only about 10% of the district is suitable for farming. The rest is Precambrian rock, lakes, rivers, and – once again – forest. These very elements are what we treasure about the region. Instead of trying to hack this wild district into farms, we go there to enjoy nature. And through the efforts of such organizations as the Muskoka Heritage Foundation, we try to preserve nature as much as possible.

My happiest realization is that Muskoka is a district known and loved for recreation rather than back-breaking struggle. The district’s residents have all its splendour in their back yards. People come here to play, to escape the city, to rest and enjoy seasonal family havens. For plenty of families, this has been a multi-generational joy. In fact, at exactly the same time the early settlers were trudging up the Muskoka Road, so were the first tourists. And of course, long before they arrived, the first nation people also enjoyed the area for its abundant natural gifts: game, fish and breathtaking beauty.

But experiencing the “Muskoka lifestyle” doesn’t come cheap. We are a long way from the free grant lands offered to settlers in the 1860s; Muskoka is now one of the most expensive addresses in Ontario. So imagine first these families of immigrants, many with nothing more than dreams in their pockets, trudging up the Muskoka Road in creaky wagons dragged by oxen. Then flash forward to glossy pages of designer cottages. This to me is the starkest contrast of all: an area once literally free for the taking is now far beyond the means of most people.

WHO GREW THE TURNIP: How Much Research It Takes to Tell a Story

ByLee Ann

I wonder if readers have any idea how much time it can take to write a sentence. I’m not talking about a sentence that is just well-crafted. I mean a sentence that is accurate and rich with detail. In a non-fiction book like Muskoka’s Main Street it’s really important that the stories I tell are not only well-crafted – by this I mean clear – but also correct and informative. 

SPOILER ALERT! I have this great sentence in Chapter 3: “Moses Martin, a 66-year-old Canadian, grew the turnip on Lot 9 East of the Muskoka Road in Morrison Township.”

Here’s what it took for me to write that one sentence.

First of all, as you, my faithful followers will know, I’m talking about THE turnip. The 16 kilogram mammoth prize turnip that was grown along the Muskoka Road in 1860 and paraded around as definitive proof Muskoka was a good place for farming. (Muskoka wasn’t, and isn’t, but that’s another story.)

I first read about the turnip in Muskoka and Haliburton 1615-1875 A Collection of Documents by Florence B. Murray. Surveyor J.W. Bridgland (my favourite surveyor who wrote all the blunt reports) mentions the turnip in his 1861 inspection report to the Commissioner of Colonization Roads.  Of course I wanted to include this in the book!

Then I found R.J. Oliver’s “Report on Free Grants on the Severn and Muskoka Road.” He was the government land agent in the district and he says he actually had the turnip in his possession! It’s a white turnip weighing, he says, 14.7 kilograms. Maybe it dried out a bit in the time it took for him to write his report, but never mind that. He also says the turnip was grown on Lot No. 9 East Morrison.

Ah ha! This sent me to Library and Archives Canada again, where I had already planned to go to look at the 1861 census. That year, the census consisted of a personal report – with names, ages, ethnic origins etc. – and an agricultural report, which gives acreage, crops grown, livestock held – AND the lot and concession numbers where people lived.

“Lot 9 East Morrison” means the 9th lot on the east side of the Muskoka Road in Morrison Township. Who owned that lot? Moses Martin, identified on the Agricultural Census. Who was he? A 66-year-old born in Upper Canada, living with his wife Catherine and four sons, all labourers: Moses Jr., 21, John 17, William Edward, 14, and Robert Henry, 12. They lived in a shanty – which is not nearly as fancy as a log house – on their 100-acre lot, where they also grew spring wheat and potatoes and made maple sugar. Oh, and they also had one pig.

Now I can write a sentence! And not just the sentence I got from an excellent but still secondary source, Murray’s textbook. A sentence that is rich with detail and one that gives information that I’ve never seen published before: the name of the actual guy who grew the famous turnip.

One sentence: about half a day of research, not counting travel time.

What do you think – was it worth it? Are you surprised at what it took?

WINTER WELCOMES MUSKOKA’S FIRST SETTLERS

ByLee Ann

What a spectacular winter season we’re having in Ottawa! The canal is open, the ski slopes are crowded, all the outdoor rinks are going full blast. The snow squeaks when you walk on it; snow pellets sting your cheeks.

With every waterproof boot-step I take, with every adjustment of my polar-fleece toque, I think of the first settlers on the Muskoka Road. 

They arrived in October 1859. The surveyors had driven stakes into the corners of their lots, but other than that, they had trees. And despite the glorious tinges of autumn leaves, the clock was ticking rapidly towards a winter some of them could not have imagined. Months of frozen isolation under feet of snow thrown down by screaming winds.

Shelter? Better make good use of that axe, my friend, against the old-growth forest. Clear out the underbrush first – saplings as tall as a man, standing in a tangle of grasses. Pile that over to the side of where you’ve decided to make your clearing. Hack down some of those giant pines – they’ve stood for an eon growing trunks so wide two men can’t reach each other from opposite sides.

Get busy. Make some logs and pile them, still barked and round, on top of each other, then scrounge around for some moss and – if you can find it – some clay to stuff in the spaces. Lay a few more logs across the top for a roof – remembering to leave an opening as a chimney, since you couldn’t afford to bring a stove. The fire will double as a heater and a place to cook.

You might use a blanket to cover that doorway, but chances are you’ll rip that down to wrap around you one frigid night. You want a table to sit at? A block of wood. A chair? More wood. Then for a mattress some soft, fragrant tamarack boughs.

It’s too late in the season to plant anything, so I hope you’ve laid in some salt pork and flour. You’ll be walking a kilometre or so to the Severn River for water to stir in with your flour to make bannock. Jackson’s store is there, but he’s just opened up and has to walk 19 kilometres to Orillia for supplies. Maybe he can sell you some wool stockings and moccasins – oh, and ask him for a buffalo skin robe, and some fur-lined gloves too, if you can afford it…

Can you imagine the bleakness of that first winter? Dark, lonely and freezing cold – and boring, with nothing much to do but try to survive into another day.

I think I’ll go turn on my gas fireplace and put the coffee-maker on. Maybe go for a walk later, with my gortex and thinsulate to keep me company.