Article by J. Patrick Boyer

Touch the Past, Embrace the Future. Huntsville, Muskoka’s largest town, displays its motto boldly on roadside entrance signs.

A notion circulated a decade ago that it was time to “rebrand,” but the potency of Huntsville’s existing message prevailed. Touching the past while embracing the future is a spirit that has infused Huntsville since inception.

The twinned impetus of building upon heritage toward a better future is still Huntsville’s primary catalyst today. It accounts for retaining the downtown core’s vitality, seeing heritage buildings designated and marked by public plaques, the housing of the public library’s extensive Muskoka Collection of heritage materials, and pairing Tom Thomson’s bronze statue outside the Algonquin Theatre with contemporary arts. Above all, Huntsville lives its slogan by advancing education, entertainment and tourism through the services, facilities and programs of Muskoka Heritage Place, located near the town centre, off Brunel Road.

For decades, Harmon Rice, publisher of the Huntsville Forester newspaper and Huntsville’s mayor, focused his efforts on preserving the past and persevering in new projects for community betterment. Huntsville’s documented accounts for the years 1875 to 1894 – including all back copies of the Huntsville Forester, the public library’s books and local documents and municipal records – turned to ash in a fire that wiped out the town centre. For the 1926 Old Home Week, Rice wrote and published a brochure recapping what he knew about Huntsville’s history from his memory and extensive involvement in local life. For years, his account of events was one of the few records of the town’s past.

In the 1930s, the Women’s Institute began documenting information about pioneers, early families and the beginnings of schools, churches, steamboats, industries, hotels, resorts and businesses, in response to Lady Tweedsmuir’s wise suggestion. Wife of Canada’s governor general, she saw how the progressive and companionable organization for women active in communities across Canada could render unique service by recording local history.

After World War II, the Women’s Institute expanded their work by displaying at Huntsville’s Fall Fair artifacts owned by Women’s Institute and Agricultural Society members. Hundreds of attendees were delighted to be reminded of times past, sharing with children what such tools and equipment has been used for. Pioneer families began donating more items the Women’s Institute could save to help educate rising generations.

In 1956, Bertha Sinclair of the Women’s Institute spotted a surplus public building she envisaged as ideal for displaying heritage items. Instead of once a year at the fair, the collection’s future could be a year-round attraction for education and tourism. In 1957, a committee of Rotarians shouldered the task and acquired the property. By summer 1958, Mayor Don Lough officially opened the Muskoka Museum.

By this time, so many articles had been donated that both rooms on the building’s main floor were needed to display them. Volunteers staffed the admission desk while Rotarians, avid about local heritage, chatted with tourists about North Muskoka’s historic foundations.

By 1960, keen to make Huntsville’s past an even bigger part of its future, council officially recognized the Muskoka Museum and designated the Rotarians to operate it, with educator John Laycock as chair. Because the Rotary Club could not receive provincial grants, responsibility for the museum was vested in the municipality, which could.

Edith Warner became the museum’s first curator during summer operation. The Royal Ontario Museum offered advice and lent wall and table-top display cases, in addition to displays of Indigenous artifacts and pioneer-era photographs.

When a new location was warranted, John Laycock and Ken Johnson discussed creating a pioneer village by gathering scattered heritage buildings on a common site before they disappeared. The Rotarians asked Laycock and Norman Kissock to find and buy the best site. Charles Watson and his wife reduced by half the price for their land in town beside a park because they saw its best future use in safeguarding North Muskoka’s heritage assets.

Pioneer Village became a dream fulfilled. A visitor time-travelling into the replicated community first passes a wigwam and next, a trapper’s cabin. There is a working blacksmith shop and a dozen other representative buildings. In time, establishing the Portage Flyer train as a working example from Muskoka’s steam era offered a rare treat for young passengers. The museum building itself, built with financial help from Cardwell, Chaffey and Franklin Townships, is a fire-proof permanent repository for Huntsville’s extensive archives and venue for major displays under the devoted direction of collections coordinator Sara White.

Now one of Ontario’s most extensive heritage attractions on extensive grounds beside the Muskoka River, the aptly renamed Muskoka Heritage Place can bond past and future because such an ideal infused Huntsville’s citizens themselves.