From Regattas on the Water to Combat in the Skies over France

It’s that special time of year in Canada - a long weekend, celebrating, in essence, that summer is only half over. And for those lucky enough to be at a lakeside cottage or resort, it can also mean watching or participating in Regattas. These are friendly, but often fierce competitions among amateurs in such traditional sports as canoeing, swimming, and sailing, and also quirkier events such as tilting - as seen in the photo above - and canoe races without paddles. Regattas can be held by just a few neighbours or run by organizations, such as the Muskoka Lakes Association (MLA), which has sponsored them annually for over a century.

The MLA Regatta was already so popular prior to World War 1 that people came from Toronto just for the day, and special steamships and overnight trains took them home again. Hundreds of boats sat at anchor or were moored many deep at the docks and islands within view of the activities. At the end of the day, various resorts held dances because even the largest of them, The Royal Muskoka Hotel, couldn’t accommodate all the revelers.

Canada’s Prime Minister, Sir Robert Borden, was holidaying at the Royal Muskoka in late July of 1914. He was to have presented the prizes at the MLA Regatta, but was suddenly summoned to Ottawa a few days before. By the end of that long weekend, Canada and the world were at war.

That’s the Regatta that I describe in my novel, The Summer Before The Storm - the last for some of my characters who go off to engage in a more deadly battle.

Naked Poets, Freethinking Clergymen, and an “Enchanted Island”

In 1928 when poet Dorothy Livesay was 19 and a student at the University of Toronto, she spent a month in Muskoka helping her cousin, who was the director of a theatre on Tobin Island. It was part of the “Muskoka Assembly” of the Canadian Chautauqua Institute. Founded by Methodist minister Charles Applegath in 1921, the Assembly sought to combine spiritual, educational, and cultural enrichment in a magnificent setting that also encouraged healthy outdoor activities like swimming, golf, tennis, and canoeing. Dorothy, wanting to feel more at one with nature, would go off blueberry picking in the nude with her friends. For her this was just an extension of the then-popular Theosophy, a philosophy that combined Eastern and Western spirituality and mysticism, in which God was nature and beauty, and man, a part of this natural world.

Visitors stayed at the Epworth Inn (later Wigwassan Lodge), while some - clergy mostly - also built cottages on the 200 acre property that stretched along 2 miles of shoreline. In addition to classes and lectures, there were entertainments, which included plays, masquerades, and sunset cruises. 

Applegath also sought to promote Canadian literature and music, so recitals and concerts were performed, and famous literary figures like Bliss Carman and E. J. Pratt spent weeks there not only sharing their works, but also being inspired by the picturesque, rugged beauty surrounding them. By 1928, the Muskoka Assembly had become known as Canada’s Literary Summer Capital. Unfortunately, the Depression took its toll on this innovative endeavour.

So it’s exciting to hear that the Muskoka Lakes Music Festival is reviving the Chautauqua, including the Reading Circle. The public is being asked to submit suggestions for this summer’s 5 “Must Read” books by April 31st. Find out more here about the 2010 Muskoka Chautauqua, which will be held at Red Leaves (J.W. Marriot), not far from the “enchanted island” that once offered sustenance for the mind, body, and soul.

In my Muskoka Novels, The Summer Before The Storm and Elusive Dawn, I’ve very loosely based “The Colony” on the Canadian Chautauqua, albeit pre-WW1.

Lakeside Resorts - Then and Now

If you wanted to escape from the hot and hectic city a hundred years ago, you could board a train, whether from Toronto or Pittsburgh or beyond, and head towards the pristine beauty of the Muskoka Lakes, where you could frolic in and on the sparkling waters and breathe the pine-scented, ragweed-free air. If you didn’t have a summer home there, you could choose from nearly a hundred resorts, hotels, and inns that catered to over 5500 tourists on the three main, connected lakes. They offered dances, concerts, and even roller skating rinks to augment the many outdoor activities. Arriving at one of the railways terminals, you’d board an elegant steamship and sail to your destination, perhaps another three or four hours away. If you could afford to pay $18 or more per week, you could stay at the grandest one of all, the Royal Muskoka Hotel on Lake Rosseau.

When the Royal was built in 1901, it was touted as being the finest hotel in Canada, with all the amenities and luxuries of any city hotel, including en suite bathrooms, barber shop and hair stylist, bakery, an orchestra, and twice daily mail delivery. See a picture of the Royal here. It burned down in 1952, fire being the fate of many of these summer resorts. Others decayed or were unable to keep up with modern demands. Only a couple of the original hotels remain.

But a new one has arisen quite close to where the Royal once stood, and harkens back in style and opulence to that era. Pictured above is “The Rosseau”, a J.W. Marriott hotel, which is open all year. What surprised me was hearing cottagers opposing its development, complaining of “increased traffic” on the lake. Considering that there are only a handful of hotels that can accommodate tourists these days, that smacks of elitism - that the lakes belong only to those who can afford the overpriced cottages. They would do well to remember that it was the many hotels that helped turn Muskoka into a renowned tourist area, and undoubtedly influenced vacationers to buy property in the days when an island could cost as little as $1. We would be delighted on our non-Muskoka lake to have a hotel to which we could boat for a decent meal, or perhaps a dance, as people did in days gone by.

In the meantime, I will enjoy occasional visits to The Rosseau, since the “Grand Muskoka Hotel” in my novels is heavily based on the Royal. There’s nothing like soaking up the ambiance for inspiration!