page_title: Bala, Ontario
section_title: Transportation
hierarchical_section_title: Bala, Ontario / Transportation
caption_attribution_description: English: Postcard of Canadian Pacific Railway station, Bala, Muskoka Lakes, Canada. Published by F.W. Micklethwaite, Photographer, Port Sandfield and Toronto.
context_page_description: Bala is a compact rural community in the township municipality of Muskoka Lakes, District Municipality of Muskoka in Central Ontario, Canada. It is well-known for the Bala Falls, the source of the Moon River, where that river drains Lake Muskoka.
  It is considered one of the hubs of cottage country located north of Toronto. Thus, its year-round population of several hundred is increased by thousands of seasonal residents and weekend day-trippers during summer months. It is known as the Cranberry Capital of Ontario, as the province's largest cranberry farms, Johnston's Cranberry Marsh and Former: Wahta Iroquis Growers, are located nearby. It was once the smallest incorporated town in Canada until it was amalgamated into Muskoka Lakes Township.
context_section_description: Bala was well connected and once was connected only to other Muskoka communities via the steamship lines that plied the Muskoka Lakes. The Cherokee, Islander and Segwun were frequently seen at the dock below the CPR station, and the Ahmic was based on the other side of Bala Bay in Torrance. Steamships have been unable to visit Bala since 1964, when the swing bridge at Bala Park Island was sealed shut. A portion of the former steamer dock remains, maintained for many decades by the MNR and today by the Township of Muskoka Lakes.
  In 1907 the Canadian Pacific Railway opened a prominent "summer" station at the harbour, complete with freight elevator (a "winter" station was located a half-mile north). There was also a seasonal Grand Trunk Railway (later CN) station across the bay on Bala Park Island. In 1927, six CPR train routes each way served Bala, four on a daily basis. With the influx of many American cottagers, Bala even became a Customs Port of Entry. The Bala Weekend trains continued to serve the tourists until 1963, when the station was demolished.
  The settlement-era Musquosh Road from Gravenhurst arrived in the 1880s and fed further development after the heyday of the railways as the route was eventually upgraded from a rough trail into first the Rama Road, then the provincial Highway 69 (later renumbered to Highway 169, then to Muskoka Road 169). A postwar bypass was created for the highway to avoid the original Musquosh Road bridge and single-lane rail underpass at the South Falls, but that also had the effect of removing traffic from Bala's former main street south of the Falls, severely impacting businesses on that section and concentrating commercial activity along the highway north of the Falls.
caption: CPR station circa 1910
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