// MUSKOKA LIVING //
Muskoka Lakes Museum was founded in Canada’s centennial year, 1967. Since then it has worked to preserve and interpret local history, from First Nations and early settlement to resorts and cottaging.
Muskoka Lakes Museum BY ANDREW HIND PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF MUSKOKA LAKES MUSEUM
For more than five decades, Muskoka Lakes Museum has exhibited and interpreted the area’s history.
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uskoka Lakes Museum has been a fixture in Bartleman Park, on an island in the heart of Port Carling, since 1967. But even prior to that date, the island had a notable past. In the 1920s and ’30s, it was a hive of activity.
A government-operated fish hatchery raised trout to restock lakes that had been depopulated by pollution from sawmills - impressive concrete foundations from the hatchery can still be seen on the island’s north waterline. In addition to the hatchery, there was also a building with a pool hall on the ground floor and a movie theatre above, a boat livery that rented canoes and rowboats to tourists,
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a lawn bowling green, and a baseball field. But by the 1960s, the glory days were long past. The island was reinvigorated on July 2, 1967, when Muskoka Lakes Museum opened to the public. The museum proved so successful that it necessitated several expansions over the ensuing years. The most notable addition came in 1982, when Hall House, a log cabin from Glen Orchard, was acquired. Painstakingly disassembled, removed from its original site and reconstructed on the island, the cabin has been furnished with artifacts to demonstrate the lifestyle of a typical Muskoka settler. Visitors should note the massive size of the logs— 60 centimetres (24 inches) thick and nine metres (30 feet) long.
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