Introduction Next to me, Bill Waterhouse gazed out at Peninsula Lake, its waters burnished by the sun. Beside us stood the aging wooden lodge his grandfather had built in a previous century, a lodge that had lured tourists to the Huntsville area and forged the path for others to follow. Its wood was now weathered and there was an ever-so-slight lean to it. "My grandfather used to have to jack the lodge up to level it every spring because it shifted over the winter," Bill told me. "It was a different time." Behind us, sitting majestically atop a plateau overlooking the lake, was the expansive hotel that represented modern Deerhurst, one of the finest resorts in Canada. It reflected the modern face of resorting in Muskoka -- comfortable accommodations, endless amenities, meals prepared by a worldclass culinary team. Bill had no resentment toward the modern face of resorting.

He''d played a role in shaping it as the owner of Deerhurst Resort in the 1970s and 1980s. But he was wistful about, and certainly respectful of, the early resorts and their proprietors from which the present had evolved. "Owning and operating a resort was more than a job in the earlier days. It was a lifestyle, all-encompassing," he explained. "Resorts became reflections of their owners. Each one was unique. And together they formed the foundation of Muskoka as we know it." Covering over six thousand square kilometres, stretching from Georgian Bay in the west to very nearly the gates of Algonquin Park in the east, Muskoka is a vast playground noted for its lakes -- principally Lake of Bays and Lakes Rosseau, Joseph, and Muskoka, but hundreds of others besides -- and verdant forest.

Dotting this landscape are cottages, increasingly mansion-like in scale and form, many belonging to celebrities. Muskoka is, and has been for a very long time, known as cottage country. But long before there were cottages, resorts had lured people to Muskoka. Exploring some of these resorts and their lasting impact on the region is the purpose of this book. That day by the water I asked Bill Waterhouse to share some stories of Deerhurst''s earlier days. He smiled broadly and asked, "How much time do you have?" The Road to Resorts But first, some context. While it was undoubtedly the resorts that brought international recognition to the region, there was of course a Muskoka prior to the one we know now. Indigenous Peoples had hunted, fished, and gathered in the region for uncounted generations.

Indeed, Muskoka is named after the Ojibwe Chief Musquakie, also known as Yellowhead. Early maps referred to the region as the Chippewa Hunting Country or Musquickkey''s Hunting Ground. The Ojibwe ranged freely across the region before Canada''s government drew lines in the mid-1800s, creating boundaries between the districts of Haliburton, Muskoka, and Parry Sound. The Ojibwe lived south of the Severn River, in settlements between Lake Couchiching and Georgian Bay in what is now northern Simcoe County, planting crops and building fishing weirs. They knew that the land north of the Severn was, due to vastly different geology and ecology, poorly suited for agriculture. Muskoka sits upon the vast Canadian Shield, where a very thin layer of soil blankets bedrock. In many places, the rock protrudes from the earth, a visible expression of the region''s ruggedness. Dense forests cover the region.

Heavy snows descend upon the landscape every winter. But while the Ojibwe considered Muskoka unsuited for year-round habitation, they certainly saw value in the region during the fairer seasons. The forests north of the Severn River were rich in game and pelts. They also had an abundance of berries and plants with medicinal properties. Finally, Muskoka had extensive stands of birch trees for building canoes (birchbark is highly flexible and, uniquely, grows around the tree rather than vertically, making it easy to work with) and pine trees from which sap was extracted for sealing the canoes. The last of these bounties -- the materials necessary for crafting canoes -- was vitally important. Because of the dense forests and rugged terrain, overland travel in Muskoka was problematic. Travel along the network of lakes and rivers that cut through the bedrock was far easier.

The network served as a watery highway for countless generations of Indigenous Peoples. It was only in the nineteenth century that permanent First Nations communities emerged. One, Obajewaning, often referred to as "Indian Village," an Ojibwe settlement of log homes and field crops, took root at Port Carling. The other was Wahta, inhabited by Wahta Mohawks, Protestant exiles from Oka in Catholic Quebec, who arrived between 1880 and 1881. They, too, traded with resorts and with the pioneer settlers that had been filling Muskoka for two decades. The first settlers to enter Muskoka arrived in the early 1860s along the government-built Muskoka Colonization Road. The government aggressively promoted the region through speeches; in advertisements in Canadian, British, and American newspapers; and in widely distributed booklets, all of which praised the region''s agricultural potential. Largely, this was driven by a desire to open the region to widespread logging because as much as 40 percent of Canada''s revenue came from timber licences.

There was also increasing pressure by a populace eager for land to open this vast frontier for Euro-Canadian settlement. The Free Grant and Homestead Act of 1868 increased the pace of settlement. Over the next two decades thousands of land-hungry settlers poured into the region, at first by road, later by rail. They discovered, like the Indigenous Peoples before them, that the network of waterways represented the fastest, most reliable, and most convenient method of travel. Steamboats replaced the birchbark canoes of yesteryear, linking communities -- and later, resorts -- to one another and to railheads. These hopeful people fantasized that the one hundred acres they were granted could be transformed into bountiful farms, that the forests could be replaced by fields of golden wheat. They bet their futures on it. Unfortunately, in most cases they were dealt a busted flush.

Most farms never developed beyond subsistence level. The growing season was relatively short, the soil largely nutrient-poor, and homesteaders spent as much time harvesting stones as they did crops, as frost would work rocks to the soil''s surface each spring. It was, for most, a hard life. A better way was found in the form of the vacation economy. Why fight against the rugged, yet undeniably beautiful, landscape when one could profit by it instead? Farmers discovered they could make extra money providing lodging and meals to sportsmen who came from southern Ontario and the United States to hunt and fish. These guests returned home singing the praises of the beauty of Muskoka''s forests and lakes, and demand for lodging in Muskoka, not just for sportsmen but also for vacationing families, grew by leaps and bounds. Landowners, who once just offered modest rooms for boarders, began to open the first true resorts. By the 1880s Muskoka was firmly on the map as a summer vacation destination.