Memories of Skeleton Lake by Paul Temple

Hatchery road between here and the little bridge over the Skeleton
River was part of the road to Rosseau.
My father’s father, my grandfather, took him by horse team and
buck board to fish for trout. He told of one time they had a huge
sack of trout tied to the back of the wagon, and when they returned,
they went to proudly display their catch, and the sack was empty.
There was a hole in it.
Dad was very proud of his 1929 Essex Super Six 95 horsepower car.
Hardly any of my friends had cars nor had been out of the city,
although we all considered ourselves middle class. Dad built a camping
trailer out of car wheels and an axle bought at a scrap yard,
and Mom and Dad and four young kids and a dog started north in
June of 1931. It was HOT—in the upper 90’s, and of course no air
conditioner in the car, but we felt very lucky because no houses had
air conditioning, and many people had been sleeping on their back
porches. The trip took 7 hours because Highway 11 was gravel much
of the way and went through every village and town. Highway 4
north from Bracebridge was gravel, and went over and around the
rock cliffs, not through them as it does today—better not drive after
dark because of the dangerous curves. One just north of Peter
Austin’s was called the Devil’s Elbow. Many cars had slipped on the
gravel and crashed down the cliff.
We finally arrived at Raymond and started creeping along the three
mile trail to the lake. Half way in was Greer’s Hill. The car couldn’t
make it. We all had to get out. Dad backed up the car and made
a run for it. The car made it in spite of the heavy trailer. (At later
times we often had to go get Cecil Nutt to drag the car up the hill
with his team of horses, but that was OK because the $5 he charged
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