Hidden Ontario Read Free

completed in 1935, and from 1947 to 1948 it was paved. In 1972 more than 60,000 visitors camped in the park’s interior. Three years later 683,661 tourists enjoyed the park — 10 times as many!
    To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Algonquin Park, a visitor centre was opened in 1993. The centre has world-class exhibits on the natural and human history of the park, a relaxing restaurant, an excellent bookstore, and “The Algonquin Room,” which holds exhibitions of Algonquin art, then and now. A theatre presentation sums up the park story, and a viewing deck puts in all in perspective.
    Visitors interested in the logging history of the park can visit the Algonquin Logging Museum, located just inside the east gate. The museum brings the story of logging to life, from the early square timber days to the last of the great river drives.
    Algonquin Park also offers the canoeist 1,500 kilometres (about 930 miles) of canoe routes throughout the district. The backpacker has a choice of three trails to hike: the Highland, Western Uplands, or Eastern Pines. These trails have loops ranging from 6 to 88 kilometres (4 to 55 miles) in length.
    Although the Park is, to some, overburdened with campers, the wilderness camper still has a few choices, but they have to work harder, go farther, and settle for more company along the way. It is an excellent place to holiday, a great learning experience for children, and it remains an inspirational landscape for painters and photographers alike. Let us give a salute to the foresight of Alexander Kirkwood, and others who followed, for correcting the path of less-than-pretty history!

Bala
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    For more than half a century, dancers and music lovers have frolicked beneath the moon and stars to the chords that drifted and echoed from Dunn’s Pavillion. For more than a century, tourists, fishermen, and hunters have thronged by horse and buggy, by train, by boat, and by automobile to this picturesque setting that winds around Lake Muskoka and the wide Moon River. Magnificent hotels, quaint stone churches, humble and glorious summer houses — they are all here in one of Ontario’s tiniest towns, the Cranberry Capital of Ontario, Bala.
    From the beginning, Thomas Burgess endeavoured to ensure that food and shelter, the two essentials of life, were available in the settlement. He opened a general store, a bake shop, a blacksmith shop, and operated a supply boat. As a responsible and concerned citizen, Burgess devoted his time to local matters. He was instrumental in the settlement of a group of Mohawks, a First Nations band from Oka, Quebec, from 1868 into the 1870s. Chief Louis Sahanatien needed help to transport his people and their goods across the 19 kilometres (12 miles) of trackless forest to the shores of Black Lake in Gibson Township. For many years Burgess voluntarily acted as agent between the Natives and the Department of Indian Affairs. In 1892 he donated land for a church in the community of Bala.
    More settlers followed Burgess, and they worked hard to establish their settlement. Mr. and Mrs. Henry C. Guy opened a boarding house which later became the Bala Falls Hotel. Mrs. Guy was also responsible for establishing the first educational facility in Bala by teaching in her own home. The families of Ephraim B. Sutton, George Clements, Alfred Jackson, John Board, Thomas Currie, John May, Joseph Spencer, Richard Moore, William Carr, Henry Hurling, and the Hamills were also among Bala’s earliest pioneers.
    Bala, at one time, was known as Musquosh Falls. A post office was established here under the name of Muskoka in 1870, but the community was eventually named Bala. Thomas Burgess had, at one time, lived in the Bala Lake district of Wales and, having been impressed by the natural beauty there, he named his community correspondingly.
    Rose and Ephraim (fondly known as E.B.) Sutton emigrated from England in 1882 and, on the advice of Mr. A.P. Cockburn and Thomas