POOR SOILS AND RICH FOLKS: HOUSEHOLD ECONOMIES AND SUSTAINABILITY IN MUSKOKA, 1850-1920 ANDREW WATSON A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAMME IN HISTORY YORK UNIVERSITY, TORONTO, ONTARIO MAY 2014 © ANDREW WATSON, 2014 ii Abstract This dissertation examines the social, economic and environmental dimensions of the transformation of the Muskoka region in southcentral Ontario from an Aboriginal place into a renowned tourist mecca between 1850 and 1920. More specifically, it explores how changing social relationships, patterns of economic exchange and environmental conditions shaped sustainability in a marginal landscape located at the southern edge of the Canadian Shield and in close proximity to large urban populations. Focusing on the household level, this study situates the challenges and opportunities faced by people in Muskoka within a broader set of social, economic and environmental histories of Ontario, Canada and North America. This work draws on a variety of primary sources, including diaries and journals, ledgers, legal testimony, Indian Affairs reports, local histories and memoirs, government files and oral interviews. The rural and environmental history of the southern Shield region has received little attention from historians. This dissertation begins with two chapters on the history of transportation in the Muskoka region, which establish the importance of mobility on the lakes and access to outside resources as central to the narrative that follows. These chapters also identify the transition from an exclusively organic fuel economy to a largely mineral fuel economy as central to the history of sustainability in the region. The dissertation then turns to the history of the region’s First Nations and the relationship of continuity and change they had with the marginal landscape of the southern Shield during this time period. The next section devotes three chapters to Eurocanadian settlement of Muskoka during the 1860s and 1870s, the rise of tourism during the 1880s and 1890s and the emergence of a culture of conspicuous consumption on the lakes during the 1900s and 1910s. Finally, the dissertation considers the alternative small- scale household approach to logging that co-existed with the commercial exploitation of Muskoka’s forests before 1920. This dissertation argues that society at the southern edge of the Shield was shaped by environmental limitations and a reliance on resources, manufactured goods and wealth from outside the region. Ultimately, this dissertation concludes that life in a marginal environment, such as Muskoka was never completely sustainable only more or less sustainable. Sustainability was part of a process, not a condition, of life in Muskoka. Life at the southern edge of the Shield became more sustainable when social relationships, patterns of economic exchange and environmental conditions were shaped mainly by local material and energy flows, and became less sustainable when local material and energy flows are greatly exceeded or undermined by exogenous ones. The most sustainable moment occurred during the 1880s and 1890s when visitors and residents formed interdependent relationships, while less sustainable moments existed before those relationships had been established and after the turn of the century when they were eclipsed by a consumer culture. The history of Muskoka did not unfold on a trajectory toward or away from an exclusively sustainable or unsustainable end. Changing circumstances either enhanced or diminished the potential for people in Muskoka to reproduce or maintain certain social, economic and environmental arrangements over time. iii For my parents, who taught me so much at the wee aight, Castle Rock, Mosquito Bay, the little lake, the point, and down at the dock iv Acknowledgements There are no words to describe what Muskoka means to me. It is part of my identity. The love I have for island and the cottage where I’ve spent every summer of my life inspired me to write this dissertation. The questions I have about Muskoka’s future directly informed the questions I sought to answer in writing this dissertation. For this reason I must thank Wegamind Island and Lake Joseph for enlightening me in their own way. I would also like to acknowledge and thank the original Anishinaabeg and Haudenosaunee occupiers of Muskoka. The financial costs associated with this dissertation were offset with very generous funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Ontario Graduate Scholarship Program, the Graduate Program in History at York University, and the Faculty of Graduate Studies at York University. I received a great deal of help and encouragement from many people at the libraries and archives I visited for research on this project. The staff at both the Archives of Ontario and Library and Archives Canada were very patient with me as I learned the process of researching in large archives. At the University of Waterloo, staff helped me find the records of the Muskoka Lakes Association. In Huntsville, staff at Muskoka Heritage Place and the Huntsville Public Library were very helpful in allowing me to explore their archives and special collections. In Gravenhurst, Marion and Cyril Fry very kindly helped me find material in the archives of the Gravenhurst Public Library, while Mary Storey allowed me very generous access to the archives of the Muskoka Steamship and Historical Society. Similarly, in Port Carling, Doug Smith gave me very generous access to the archives of the Muskoka Lakes Museum. Conversations with local historians Richard Tatley, Ken Veitch and Bill Gray helped steer me in the right direction. I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to the administrative staff in Department of History at York University who were patient and kind with me in so many ways, especially Karen Dancy and Lisa Hoffmann who went out of their way on several occasions to make sure I had all my ducks in a row. I was very lucky to have the support and critical feedback of members from both the Network in Canadian History and Environment’s New Scholars Group and the Toronto Environmental History Network reading group who read several chapters of this dissertation. Many of the suggestions and comments I received from each group got me thinking about the project in important new ways. A very special thanks goes to my writing group, Ben Bryce and Brittany Luby who gave me deadlines to work under, read almost all my chapters and provided wonderful, detailed, and insightful feedback. v I have had the pleasure and the honour of working with the very best committee I could imagine throughout the entire duration of my studies at York. Beginning with course work in my first year, Carolyn Podruchny, Richard Hoffmann and Colin Coates have guided me through every aspect of graduate school. Carolyn Podruchny made me realize the importance of the Aboriginal history of Muskoka and kept me motivated with encouragement and praise. Richard Hoffmann helped me conceptualize the history I wanted to write and pushed me to always think more about the material realities of the past. My supervisor, Colin Coates, asked all the right questions, inspired me to think about the larger connections, and guided me through the process of discovering my own ideas. I could not have asked for a better committee. Thank you also to the examining committee: Susan Gray, L. Anders Sandberg and Sean Kheraj. All the hardships I experienced during this process were more than offset by the friends who gave me encouragement and understanding, who shared laughs and spilled drinks with me. I most certainly could not have done this without Lesley. We didn’t make it, but she helped me get there. The most important thank you of all goes to my family. I hope to one day be as kind, generous and smart as my brother Neil and sister Gillian. To my parents, Kerry and Keith, thank you for the cottage, for telling me I could do it when I thought I couldn’t, and for always seeing the very best in me. It is to your patience, support, guidance and love that I dedicate “Poor Soils and Rich Folks.” vi Table of Contents List of Images vii Preface viii Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Muskoka’s Organic Modes of Transportation 37 Chapter 2: Muskoka’s Mineral Modes of Transportation 77 Chapter 3: Experiences of Continuity and Change for Muskoka’s First Nations 129 Chapter 4: Landscape Transformations and Emergent Interdependencies, 1860-1885 192 Chapter 5: The Lakeshore Realignment and Settler-Tourist Interface, 1885-1905 229 Chapter 6: The Rise of Consumerism and Household Atomization, 1905-1920 274 Chapter 7: Household-based Approaches to Wood Resource Harvesting, 1860-1920 314 Conclusion 373 Appendix 392 Bibliography 396 vii List of Images Image 1: The Muskoka River Watershed 25 Image 2: The Muskoka River 1,000 Years Ago 26 Image 3: Transportation Networks in Muskoka, ca.1910 43 Image 4: Distribution of Households Selling Cordwood for Use aboard Steamboats, ca.1890s 102 Image 5: Home Range of Muskoka’s First Nations 150 Image 6: The Muskoka Lakes, ca.1886 200 Image 7: The Muskoka Lakes, ca.1910 277 Image 8: White Pine Saw Logs Cut in Western Timber District of Ontario, 1874-1920 322 Image 9: Settlers who sold logs to Snider, January 1902 - April 1907 351 Image 10: Sites where the Muskoka Leather Co. sourced some of the tanbark used in its Bracebridge factory, 1897-1906 367 viii Preface From a very young age, I spent my summers at an old cottage on an island in Muskoka. Thinking back, I see the chapters of this dissertation already written out in that place. For starters, the island is separated from everywhere else by water. Almost everything my family and I ate, wore, used to furnish the cottage, and played with came from some place else.