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Preserving Muskoka’s past
By Kathryn Beirness
Walk upstairs to the second floor of
the Gravenhurst Public Library and
you’ll find one of the most interesting
– and organized – rooms in Muskoka.
There, in a modest space, a dedicated
volunteer committee has diligently
recorded and stored the fascinating
documents and photos that compile
the Gravenhurst Archives, preserving
the items that tell the story of the
town’s past.
The Gravenhurst Archives were
established in 1978 with grant money
left over from the town’s centennial
celebrations. The first documents were
submitted when Cyril Fry, who was
then writing about the town’s history
for the Gravenhurst News, invited readers
to send in their photos of days gone
by.
“We received about 1,000 photos of
which only about 200 were taken back
by the owners,” says Fry. “The remainder
– about 800 – were submitted to
the archives.”
The rest is history – literally.
Though it is difficult to determine
how many pieces have been added
manually to the archives in over 30
years, Jack Cline, a volunteer on the
committee that is scanning the documents
in order to computerize the
entire collection, estimates there may
be as many as 40,000 items.
“Our mandate,” says volunteer Marion
Fry, “is to collect material that may
be of use for public inquiries and for
future generations who are interested
in our town.”
Information is catalogued in
upwards of 120 categories, including
the lumber industry, prisoners of war
in Muskoka, the sanatorium, steamboats,
boatworks, high schools, hospitals,
camps and municipal services.
Archives are also stored relating to
Memoirs of an innkeeper
Cyril and Marion Fry, along with many others, have volunteered countless
hours to preserving the past in the Gravenhurst Archives.
By Sandy Lockhart
Author Sylvia Richardson will be signing
copies of her book, Holiday House –
Memoirs of a Muskoka Innkeeper, as a
fundraiser for St. Thomas’ Anglican
Church in Bracebridge.
Richardson and her husband Arthur
operated the Holiday House Inn, now
known as Inn at the Falls, in Bracebridge
for about four years in the early
and mid 1980s. Richardson wrote and
published a book about her time as an
innkeeper.
As a fundraiser for the church, she had
100 more copies printed, and will be selling
them at the church on Saturday, May
29 with all profits going to St. Thomas’
Anglican Church. The sale will take place
from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Richardson wrote about her innkeeping
adventures shortly after leaving the
inn but let them sit tucked away for
many years. She rediscovered her notes
when spring cleaning several years later
and decided it was time to share her stories
and memories of their time at the
Inn. The book was published in 2004
and now in 2010, Richardson is making
the book available again.
Readers will learn something of the
history of Holiday House, its owners, visitors
and ghostly residents from the
innkeeper’s perspective. Richardson
shares the spirited and fun social times
and some of the more trying times they
experienced as innkeepers.
Memorabilia from the days at Holiday
House will also be on display.
“There will be photo albums, newspaper
clippings and letters for people to
browse through,” she says, explaining
that she saved letters from guests in special
albums.
“I want to support the church,” she
says. “I’m not able to volunteer like I’d
like to. This is a way to help out and give
back.”
Those wishing to order the book, but
who are not able to attend the signing
can contact St. Thomas’ Church.
Bala, Port Sandfield and Port Carling.
Archiving so many documents and
photographs can be an arduous task,
Photograph: Sandy Lockhart
the volunteers admit, but uncovering
the stories that go along with each
piece is worth the time and effort.
Recently the committee was given a
collection of photographs dating back
to 1907 that showed a family at their
cottage on Lake Muskoka.
“There used to be a railway station
on Lake Joseph, close to what is now
the CNIB camp,” explains Marion Fry.
“These photos show how the cottage
was built near that railway station,
because the matriarch of the family,
the grandmother, she took the train to
Toronto every Sunday so she could
attend church service there.”
In 2004 the committee began scanning
all the documents in the collection
in an effort to preserve them, but
also to allow for greater access. So far
Cline and his team have scanned about
18,000 items.
“A collection of 100 items takes
about six or seven hours to scan and to
add descriptions,” says Cline.
Digitally recording the collections
means people will have wider search
capabilities, he adds.
“With the computers, we can save
the files under many more descriptions,”
he explains, “so that people will
have more key words to choose from.”
Cline was very excited by an item he
came across while scanning.
“It was a copy of The Globe newspaper,
dated July 1, 1867,” he says.
“Reading about how this country was
formed by the people who were actually
there – I just couldn’t believe it.”
He adds, “The most rewarding
thing about working on the archives is
the surprising information one discovers
when you delve into the collections.”
Sylvia Richardson will be signing copies Holiday House – Memoirs of a
Muskoka Innkeeper, as a fundraiser for St. Thomas’ Anglican Church.
Photograph: Sandy Lockhart
www.whatsupmuskoka.com May 2010 9