Welcome to Muskoka!
Muskoka. The Magic Land of Lakes. Once you fall in love with Muskoka, that's it. It's got you under its spell.
We know families who have been coming to holiday in Muskoka for six or seven generations. There was at time when whole trainloads of the cream of society in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and their butlers and nannies arrived en masse at the end of June. They steam-boated directly to the docks of their very grand cottages on the islands forming Millionaire's Row in Lake Muskoka. And didn't go home until September.
Did you know the Muskoka lakes bred a whole new kind of motorboats? Because our lakes are full of islands and bays, there's scarcely any stretch of water where the winds can generate big, bullying waves. So the Muskoka-built launches of the early 1900's were long and sleek and open and low, gleaming with rare woods and lots of chrome and leather.
Muskoka. The Invention of the Wilderness Resort.
The last person who was disappointed by Muskoka was most certainly a farmer. About 130 years ago. The problem was earth. You see, there mostly isn't any. Because despite those fabulous, towering pines (many later served as British Naval ship masts) the original settlers found the growing was lousy. Under a dusting of soil, they hit rock. One-billion-plus year old granite, into which three-kilometer thick glaciers had carved over a thousand gorgeous, island-dotted lakes.
So, the farmer look at the sun-dappled forests rising from the sparkling granite shores of the shining lakes, and put a Room for Rent sign in the parlor window.
Addition after addition turned farmhouses into guest houses into hotels, and the insatiable demand for accommodations and attractions turned the farmers into innkeepers and hoteliers.
By happy coincidence, the main Muskoka lakes were now plied by a growing felt of steamships. Avoiding the muck and mire of wretched local roads, ships could carry goods and settlers serenely upon glassy waters from the railhead at Gravenhurst in the south, a full thirty miles northwards on the journey to the new frontiers of the north. The same ships soon ferried growing numbers of tourists and hotel guests to their holiday destinations throughout the region.
As Muskoka's reputation as an antidote for big city life grew, so did the size, grandeur and attractions of the resort hotels. Those that survived and prospered have been joined by a new generation of gracious and elegant facilities that cater to every holiday taste.
(from the pages of the 2002 Vacation Guide, published by Muskoka Tourism)
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