How it started
History
The lakes and rivers of the Muskoka Lakes region have long been used for transportation by the Algonquian-speaking Anishinaabeg peoples, and they were heavily used by the first Europeans who visited the area. In the latter half of the 19th century, the land north of Barrie was being opened up for colonization via land grants. As roads were in poor condition or non-existent, the only reliable form of transportation was by steamboat. By 1875 a pair of locks and a canal had been built to bypass a series of rapids in the Muskoka River, allowing navigable access between Mary Lake and Huntsville. In 1886 another canal was built to connect from Fairy Lake to Peninsula Lake to the east.
A broken link in the chain of lakes served by the growing network existed between Lake of Bays and Peninsula Lake, which connected in turn to Fairy Lake and the town of Huntsville. The short distance between the two lakes was too steep to justify building a canal. Within a distance of 1,800 metres (5,900 ft) the elevation change was more than 30 metres (98 ft). A ridge down the middle adds another 20 metres (66 ft). This obstacle was initially overcome by the construction of a gravel road in 1887, but the steep terrain made shipping any heavy loads via buckboard very difficult.
Portage railway
George F. Marsh ran steamers on a number of lakes in the area, and in 1895 he bought out his major competitor, Alfred Denton. This left him in control of most of the commercial shipping on Lake of Bays and the lower Fairy, Mary and Peninsula lakes, which he incorporated as the Huntsville and Lake of Bays Transportation Company. That year, he received a charter to build an electric railway in the gap between Peninsula Lake and Lake of Bays, which would complete his network.
By 1900 no work on the electric railway had been carried out, and he reincorporated as the Huntsville and Lake of Bays Navigation Company with a separate charter for a railway as the Huntsville and Lake of Bays Railway. This company was allowed to raise up to $50,000 in shares, and would connect not only Peninsula Lake and Lake of Bays, but extend to the west end of Hollow Lake as well. Seeing a big future for the area, the original company reincorporated once again in 1902 as the Huntsville, Lake of Bays and Lake Simcoe Navigation Company, with a charter for shipping, "hotels, house boats, boarding houses, cottages and summer resorts".
From Wikipedia’s article on Huntsville and Lake of Bays Transportation Company, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2