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Visitors to this exhibit will travel along a time tunnel of fascinating photographs to see what life looked like a century ago on the north shore of Georgian Bay, and how the community has changed over 100 years.
The photographs are the work of Hugh Cummings, a son of the Cummings family who became an integral part of the Massey community when they moved from Michigan in 1898. Hugh, an amateur photographer, opened a photography studio in Massey in 1907, the same year the Massey Fair began. Although Hugh was well known for his photographs of the local landscape, his studio became popular with Massey area residents who wanted to record birthdays, weddings, christenings and other festivities.
Cumming’s photography shop has been reproduced in the Massey and District Museum, including the table so familiar to many young subjects and their doting parents. Taking photographs of family events was time consuming, but Hugh found time to record life beyond the studio, offering many of these scenes on postcards for the general public. Interestingly, although he sold the post cards for five cents each, he paid three cents to produce each one.
A sports enthusiast, Hugh Cummings recorded many scenes of his favorite sports, hockey and baseball, as well as other sporting activities he organized. His photographic collection includes scenes from winter horse racing on the ice of the Spanish River and broomball, for which Massey is famous.
When Hugh married Inda Knox, the daughter of a pioneer Massey family in 1921, the newlyweds expanded the photography business to include a china and gift shop, which quickly became a fixture for local residents and visitors. Hugh continued to photograph area sites and events, particularly on family outings in their 1921 Dodge Dart, the Oldsmobile or his Hudson Terraplane. After Hugh and Inda’s son Hal was born in 1929, the family made regular Sunday auto excursions along the north shore, stopping frequently so Hugh could capture newer and different views of the scenery and many local events.
Come and travel the Massey and District Museum’s time tunnel to compare life on the north shore then and now.
