Article by J. Patrick Boyer

By the early 1860s one of Muskoka’s largest townships was surveyed, named for the British engineer who’d just built the world’s longest bridge across the St. Lawrence at Montreal and opened for settlement. Yet Stephenson’s 43,000 acres of land, much of good quality, and 3,000 acres of water, including a most beautiful lake, remained quiescent. The Ojibwe called the lake Kche-negeek-chiching because its largest island resembled a swimming otter. But in 1853 Alexander Murray, conducting a geological survey of Muskoka and always away from home, guiltily renamed it Mary’s Lake as a compensatory treat for his daughter. She never saw it.

By 1868, with the northland not filling up as hoped, Ontario offered free lots to homesteaders and Muskoka’s land boom began, helped by the surging steam age. Immigrants from the British Isles – an overwhelming source of district settlers – reached Muskoka quickly thanks to steamships and trains. On September 9, 1869, the Kay family sailed from Britain and just two weeks later discovered Bracebridge, “a very healthy place,” as 18-year-old Annie Kay told her diary.

The next day her father James and brother Will walked 16 miles into Stephenson then returned having claimed “600 fine acres of land” for the various family members. Their claim included 100 acres for Annie because land grants were equally available to women, a factor creating an egalitarian strain in Muskokans at the time.

At their homestead two miles downstream from Mary’s Lake, alongside the Muskoka River, the Kays cleared trees and planted oats, potatoes, peas and turnips amongst the stumps. Life was rugged and primitive. Walking six winter miles to Utterson and back for supplies was often disappointing since little was available. With no coal oil for lamps, the Kays made candles out of deer fat.

In 1868 John McAlpine also arrived but not to farm. The waterfall where Mary’s Lake drained into the Muskoka River could power a sawmill. Muskoka was for logging as well as farming. The falls were at the corner of four township lots, which he claimed as Free Grant Land.

“McAlpine’s sawmill,” wrote George Johnson, “built on the fringe of the wilderness at the end of a road that was little more than a rough trail through the woods, became a remarkable tribute to the man’s ability and determination.” It took 18 months to build, including bringing heavy machinery bit by bit from Bracebridge.

Port Sydney had many beginnings as a farming community, lumber milling and shingle-making centre, pivotal hub of navigation, grain milling and cheese producing place with a shifting location and changing name. When the railway bypassed it in 1885, the village was resuscitated by resorts beside Mary Lake, including welcoming Clyffe House that would be run by the same family for five generations.

The village’s rapid evolution and staying power lay in its diversity and waterway location. Like Bala and Baysville, it was also at the edge of a large lake system where water draining out created a waterfall that fostered growth. Port Sydney was at the summit of the Muskoka River’s north branch flowing down to Bracebridge and the base for navigation from Mary’s Lake north to lakes Fairy, Peninsula, and Vernon – for the time the only supply route to Huntsville and Hoodstown.

Another arrival was Arthur Sydney-Smith – neither farmer not lumberman but a self-designated squire of the fledgling community. Though Ontario-born, he’d been raised as if on an English country estate and acted in commanding fashion. He took over McAlpine’s sawmill and achieved the prosperity that had eluded its builder. Clear-cutting around the vicinity denuded the picturesque landscape.

The squire realized that his mill property running up and down both sides of the river required repositioning the village to the north. In the bargain, the post office that had been granted – without the apostrophe-s in Mary’s name – was regranted for vanity, from Mary Lake to Port Sydney. Thankfully, Ottawa was as opposed to hyphenated names as possessive ones.

The steamship Northern, built at Port Sydney, was one of many working the upper lakes. When the railway north was built through Utterson, Port Sydney’s mills and factories faded. Resort hotels and summer cottages would fill the void, as Muskoka’s vacation economy around Mary Lake enabled life to continue.