"Are We There Yet?" Highway-Based Tourism In Kawartha Lakes "Are We There Yet?" Highway-Based Tourism In Kawartha Lakes Kirkfield & District Historical Society
Early motorists had to contend with dirt roads which could be notoriously challenging to navigate, such as that in Coboconk. Eventually this route would be paved as part […]
By the 1950s, tourists were plying the lakes in motorboats. Charlie Faulkner’s cedar-strip boat was powered by a Johnson outboard motor and regularly took Falcon Lodge guests out […]
This hand-tinted postcard shows the Kirkfield Lift Lock as it appeared during its first decade of operation. Opened in 1907, it remains the second-highest hydraulic lift lock in […]
Steamboat operators placed advertisements in local newspapers to inform prospective passengers of schedules and routes. The steamer Kawartha plied the route between Fenelon Falls and Coboconk over the […]
This Edwardian-era postcard depicts the Stoney Lake being locked through the Kirkfield Lift Lock not long after it opened for traffic in 1907. Launched in 1904, the Stoney […]
This topographical map shows northwestern Victoria County (later called Kawartha Lakes) as it appeared in 1916. The Portage Road linking the villages of Kirkfield and Coboconk would evolve […]
By the mid-1950s, railway passenger service had become little more than a tourist attraction. No. 2644, one of the Canadian National Railway’s N-4-a class of locomotives built in […]
The Kirkfield station was typical of those constructed by the Toronto & Nipissing Railway. It replaced an earlier building in 1892 and outlived the railway, serving as a […]
The Nipissing Guide & Holiday Companion was published by G.C. Patterson for the Toronto & Nipissing Railway in 1874. It used evocative imagery to entice travellers: “As the […]
The Canadian National Railway’s “mixed train” to Coboconk, seen here at Kirkfield in 1951, carried both freight and passengers. A typical mixed train had gondola cars laden with […]
This picture – taken in August of 1940 and originally published in the Department of Highways Ontario (DHO) Official Road Bulletin, issued on July 10 1941 – captures […]
Vice-Admiral Henry Vansittart (1779-1844) was possibly the first European to build a seasonal residence in what is now northwestern Kawartha Lakes. This drawing shows Balsam Lake and the […]