Muskoka is synonymous with cottage country. This region along with Halliburton, Kawartha Lakes and Peterborough County has over 2.1 million visitors annually. Muskoka, of the District Municipality of Muskoka is a regional municipality in central Ontario and is about a two hour drive north of Toronto. This area has some 1,600 lakes making it perfect for a weekend getaway.
Before moving to Toronto, I had no idea about this cultural phenomenon of “cottage country”. But not any one has a cottage here. Since Toronto is the land of immigrants, it seems to me that only people that have been here for a generation or two have the financial ability to have a cottage. And talking with Canadians, some have really fancy cottages and others have more basic ones. I’ve been here for eight years and have yet to visit up north. But this blog will outline some of the beautiful things that Ontario has to offer with a focus on this particular piece of heaven.
Cottage country is so ingrained in some Canadians lives that the band The Tragically Hip made a song called “Bobcaygeon” about the area (or listen to it here). It was realest in 1999 from their sixth album, Phantom Power and apparently has become one of the more beloved songs. One of my favourite lines from this song is that in Bobcaygeon “the constellations/reveal themselves one star at a time” in contrast to the city’s “dull and hypothetical” skies. Honestly, listening to this song sent me down a rabbit trail of The Tragically Hip which left me feeling vulnerable and nostalgic.
For a historical approach, geography made this area wealthy in terms of fishing, hunting, and trapping. It is largely the land of the Ojiwa people and now contains four First Nations reserves: Wahta Mohawk Territory, Indian River, Moose Point 79, and Chippewa Island. It is said that the first European to glimpse Muskoka or Haliburton was a French youth named Étienne Brûlé in 1610 or 1611. With the wave of immigration from Europe in the 19th century, large numbers of settles from the UK and Germany arrived.
In the 1860s Alexander Cockburn began placing steamers on the lake system and pressed the government to open the entire lake system to navigation. Early tourists-built camps, which lead to some great hotels in the late 1870s such as the Rosseau and the Royal Muskoka. In 1875 the railway reached Gravenhurst, which made travel from Toronto extremely easy. Travelers from Pittsburgh and New York also started visiting the region.
Now-a-days the census from 2021 stated the the District of Muskoka had a population of 66,674 living in about 47,560 private dwellings, which is about a ten percent in crease from the 2016 census.
Now that we’ve had the introduction to this lovely area, stay tuned for more relevant (read up-to-date!) information about the interesting things in this region and the surrounding land. Thanks so much for reading.
