page_title: District Municipality of Muskoka
section_title: The steamship era
hierarchical_section_title: District Municipality of Muskoka / History / The steamship era
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of the RMS Segwun on her maiden voyage to Bracebridge on 9 July, 1925
context_page_description: The District Municipality of Muskoka, more generally referred to as the District of Muskoka or Muskoka, is a regional municipality in Central Ontario, Canada. Muskoka extends from Georgian Bay in the west, to the northern tip of Lake Couchiching in the south, to the western border of Algonquin Provincial Park in the east. A two-hour drive north of Toronto, Muskoka spans 6,475 km². Muskoka has some 1,600 lakes, making it a popular cottaging destination.
  This region, which, along with Haliburton, Kawartha Lakes, and Peterborough County is referred to as "cottage country", sees over 2.1 million visitors annually. Muskoka is an area populated with several villages and towns, farming communities, and lakeside vacation hotels and resorts near to golf courses, country clubs, and marinas. The regional government seat is Bracebridge and the largest population centre is Huntsville.
  Muskoka is geographically located within the Central Ontario region of the province, although it is treated as part of Northern Ontario by some government programs.
  Muskoka is a summer destination for Toronto residents and was the #1 most searched Canadian destination for vacation rentals in 2017.
context_section_description: Alexander Cockburn answered the call. Sometimes called the Father of Muskoka, Cockburn began placing steamers on the lake.  Starting with his steamship the Wenonah, Ojibwa for "first daughter", in 1866 Cockburn pressed the government to open the entire Muskoka lake system to navigation.  He urged installing locks in Port Carling and opening a cut between Lake Rosseau and Lake Joseph at Port Sanfield.  The government was eager to reinforce development in light of the faltering agricultural plan, and built the big locks in Port Carling in 1871.  Cockburn's steamers had access to the entire lake system. Through the years he added more ships; when he died in 1905, his Muskoka Navigation Company was the largest of its kind in Canada.
  Shortly after the arrival of the steamships, another industry began to develop as agriculture never could.  1860 two young men, John Campbell and James Bain Jr, made a journey that marked them as perhaps the first tourists in the region. Taking the Northern Railway to Lake Simcoe, they took the steamer Emily May up the lake to Orillia, and rowed across Lake Couchiching. They walked up the Colonization Road to Gravenhurst, where they vacationed. They liked what they saw and repeated the journey every year, bringing friends and relatives. These early tourist pioneers increased demand for transport services in the region. People were drawn by the fishing, natural environment, and an air free of ragweed, providing relief for hay fever sufferers.
  Early tourists built camps, but were joined by others desiring better accommodations. Farmers who were barely scratching a living from the rocky soil soon found demand for overnight accommodations arriving on their doorsteps. Some made the switch quickly and converted to boarding houses and hotels.  The first wilderness hotel, called Rosseau House, was built at the head of Lake Rosseau in 1870.  It was owned by New Yorker William H. Pratt. The idea caught on and the number of tourists increased, establishing the tourist industry as the up-and-coming money earner in the 1880s.
  The steamship era gave rise to the area's great hotels: Rosseau, Royal Muskoka, Windermere, Clevelands House, Beaumaris, and many more.  When the railroad reached Gravenhurst in 1875, the area grew rapidly. Travel from Toronto, Pittsburgh, and New York City became less a matter of endurance than expenditure. Trains regularly made the run from Toronto to Gravenhurst, where travellers and their luggage were transferred to the great steamers of the Muskoka Navigation Co, such as the Sagamo. Making regular stops up the lakes, including at Bracebridge, Beaumaris, and Port Carling, tourists could transfer to smaller ships, such as the Islander.  These could reach smaller ports. Improving transportation links opened smaller or more remote upper Muskoka lakes (Fairy, Vernon, Mary, Peninsula and Lake of Bays) to tourism around the turn of the 20th century, with steamers out of Huntsville servicing hotels like Deerhurst on Peninsula Lake. The Portage Railway between Peninsula Lake and Lake of Bays enabled comparatively easy access to the latter, resulting in a blossoming of tourism there, with 21 hotels eventually springing up, among them notably the Wawa and Britannia hotels and perhaps culminating in the Bigwin Inn.
  The hotels became the centres of wealthy vacationers' lives, and families conducted extended stays that could stretch for weeks or months in the summer. As families became seasonally established, they began building cottages near the hotels; at first simple affairs replicating the rustic environment of the early camps.  Later they built grander homes, including in some cases, housing for significant domestic staff. Initially cottagers relied on rowboats and canoes for daily transport and would sometimes row substantial distances.  In the era of the steam and gasoline launch, tourists relied less on muscle power and more on motors. With the boats, the wealthier summer people built boathouses, often elaborate structures in their own right, in many cases designed with the look and feel 
caption: RMS Segwun on her maiden voyage to Bracebridge 9 July 1925.
exif: {}