Trafford Publishing: Algonquin Voices - Selected Stories of Canoe Lake Women

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Algonquin Voices - Selected Stories of Canoe Lake Women

by Gaye I. Clemson

169 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #02-0302; ISBN 1-55369-489-9; US$19.00, C$23.95, EUR15.60, £10.80

Ths book shares the life experiences of over 20 women, who led very different lives but had one common frame of reference. They all lived at one time or another on Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park in the 20th Century.

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about the book      about the author      reviews      sample excerpts and Table of Contents      catalogue info

About the Book

Since 1917, much has been written about the life and death of artist Tom Thomson on Canoe Lake in Ontario's Algonquin Park. Thomson was a major influence on the Group of Seven, but until now, little has been known about the women whose lives he touched: Annie Fraser, proprietress of Mowat Lodge who likely knew a lot more than she ever let on; Louisa Blecher, mother of Martin Blecher the man who was silently accused of playing a hand in Thomson's death; Molly Colson, owner of the Algonquin Hotel where Tom was last seen; and the elusive Winnifred Trainor, Thomson's alleged love interest. After years of painstaking research, Gaye I. Clemson's ALGONQUIN VOICES brings to life the lives of these and many other courageous women who have lived and loved on the shores of Algonquin Park's famous Canoe Lake since 1905.
"In 1997 I got inspired to trace and record the settlement history of all of my Canoe Lake neighbours," Clemson, a 48-year resident of Canoe Lake, explains. "In the process I discovered a treasure trove of family stories about the lives of women pioneers, business owners, children's camp leaders and independent spirits from all walks of life, who were captivated by the lake's haunted history and beauty and chose to settle on Canoe Lake, some with husbands and children and others without."
Beginning in the early 1900's, ALGONQUIN VOICES tells in words and pictures the stories of over 20 pioneers, business women, children's' camp leaders and independent spirits who chose to make Canoe Lake their summer, and in some cases year round, home. It shares their life and settlement history, artistic and professional endeavours, family traditions and summer amusements including first hand insight as to how they coped (and in some cases earned a living) with the challenges of day-to-day living without city conveniences, miles from civilization deep in the heart of one of North America*s most well-known parks.
It makes an important contribution in helping 21st C young women understand better what life was like for their grandmothers and great grandmothers 100+ years ago and get in touch with their collective feminist roots that are so easily forgotten in the hustle and bustle of our modern lives.

About the Author

Gaye I. Clemson, born in Toronto, Ontario, first came to Canoe Lake as a 9-month old and has spent part of virtually every summer there since the early 1950's. Her first Canoe Lake summer was spent sitting in a bushel basket under a giant pine tree watching her parents build their family summer cabin on a newly leased ridge high above the lake. "Every nail, shingle, and piece of recycled lumber had been driven up from Toronto, carried across the lake in a small boat and then hauled up a hill following a narrow path cut through the forest," Clemson explains. She heard her first telling of the Tom Thomson mystery sitting by a campfire on the lap of one of the locals, Jimmy Stringer, whose older brothers had been around during the time of Thomson's death and has watched the story take on a life of its own ever since.
Inspired in 1996, the author became curious about the lives of fellow leaseholders who had inhabited the lake since 1905. For four years she and her children wandered about the lake exploring its shores, visiting neighhours and talking to them about their settlement history. Along with that history came a treasure trove of personal and family stories dating back to the early 1900's. The first results from this research effort, published in 2001 were a poster size, hand-drawn map illustrating the Human History of Canoe Lake and a short story about the history of one resilient woman Gertrude Baskerville who was known across North America in the 1970's as the Lady of Algonquin Park. She lived alone for over 35 years on the shores of Tea Lake and earned her living hooking rugs of Tom Thomson paintings and renting out cabins to visitors in the summers. The level of interest that these publications generated, encouraged Gaye to continue to her efforts in capturing on paper the stories of the lives of other women who had lived at various times on Canoe Lake. This book is the latest result of that effort. While not on Canoe Lake, Clemson can be found in Capitola, California with her twin 8-year old boys, running a small high-tech market research and strategic planning consulting firm.

Reviews

"ALGONQUIN VOICES is a must read for anyone who loves Algonquin Park. [Clemson] has captured the soul of the pioneers of this unique bush community and tells, in loving detail, what it was really like to live here and die here."
~ Roy MacGregor, journalist and author of several books and articles about Algonquin Park and CanoeLake.
"It is almost 150 years since Canoe Lake was named, and in that time it has attracted a great variety of notable personalities: almost a microcosm of Canadian society. The men, including the lumber barons David and Allan Gilmour, the artist Tom Thomson, the youth leader Taylor Statten, have been duly recognized in print. But what of the women? Here for the first time Gaye I. Clemson has drawn together word portraits of some very remarkable ladies. Some were supporters of their husbands through difficult pioneering times, some were entrepreneurs on their own, at least one was a caring nurse and sister of mercy. It was my privilege to have known a number of Gaye's subjects; reading her book makes me wish I had known all,"
~ George Garland, author/editor of Glimpses of Algonquin Park and long-time resident of neighbouring Smoke Lake in Algonquin Park.
"Much has been written about the history of Canoe Lake from the mysterious death of artist Tom Thomson to the demise of the Gilmour Lumber Company dynasty. However, Gaye brings an illuminating new perspective on the area's illustrious past through these fascinating personal stories."
~ Ron Tozer, retired Algonquin Park Naturalist and Archivist
This well written, delightful book is enhanced by its superb organization, excellent vintage photographs, informative maps and splendid water colour drawings by Mary Kendall Percival, a Canoe Lake resident. '"Algonquin Voices"' should appeal to all readers who appreciate the natural beauty of Algonquin Park and its people whose captivating stories are unforgettable.
~ Eleanor Kidd, Huntsville Forester
Algonquin Voices is a book full of rich, detailed and evocative stories of women who might have been overlooked if one of their own hadn't had the wisdom to recognize the historical significance of their everyday struggles and accomplishments."
~ Dr. Patricia Bradshaw, Associate Professor Organization Behaviour York University's Schulich School of Business
Gaye Clemson's 169 page book, Algonquin Voices recollects a lifestyle that otherwise would have faded into forgotten memories. Her focus is on the women that left their marks on the Canoe Lake community over the past century. Gaye generates a nostalgia for a place and time that most of us never experienced or guessed at. The book's numerous black and white photos from the family albums of Canoe Lake "cottagers" effectively put faces to the stories' names. Having read this book, your next paddle up Canoe Lake will be coloured with an understanding of what came before .. the loves, lives and losses of Canoe Lake's last century.
~ Barry Bridgeford Editor - www.Algonquin Adventures.com
In my living room I have a sculpture of a larger-than-life loon, a beautiful work of art by a well-known Colorado sculptor, Tom Ware. And on the loon's back rides a lovely young girl, a symbol if ever there was one of beauty and complete freedom. I was struck by the analogy, which this sculpture presents to the life depicted by Gaye Clemson in her mesmerizing book, Algonquin Voices, an account of life on Canoe Lake in Ontario's primitive Algonquin Park. I can vouch for the accuracy of Ms. Clemson's vision. It is as if she had painted a great number of excellent water colors, each of them looking in a different direction from her lakeside vantage point, and was showing them to us as she gave us the history of the area. If you already have a place where time stands still for a few days each year while you reacquaint yourself with wilderness; then by all means go there and be refreshed. But if not, listen to those Algonquin Voices of Gaye Clemson and let her take you vicariously to such a place in another time. You won't be sorry!
~ Pierson F. Melcher, Editor - TheBestReviews.com
Algonquin Voices is the story of an entire community of women and the winner of the 2002 Ontario Historical Society's Alison Prentice Award for Best Women's History. Inspired by Bernard S. Shaw's research of Canoe Lake, Gaye Clemson says she found herself 'assembling a large number of narratives about a marvelous collection of courageous mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters and cousins that needed a voice". She has given them a wonderful voice in this book broken down into categories" Pioneers, Business Women, Leaders, Early Feminists, Ghosts and more. The list of unique women goes on and every tale is entertaining. Maps and photographs of life along the shores of Canoe Lake from generation to generation abound in this wonderful book Room for this one on the Muskoka bookshelf" It's already there.
~ Brad Hammond Editor Vintage Muskoka Magazine
Algonquin Voices, Selected Stories of Canoe Lake Women, by Gaye I. Clemson is a charming collection of anecdotal sketches about women who lived in the Canoe Lake area of Algonquin Park beginning in the early 1900's. They bring to light a past that is quickly disappearing but should not be forgotten. Clemson has spent most of her summers on Canoe Lake, arriving as an infant with her parents, who built their own summer cabin on a high ridge overlooking the lake. In 1996 she began visiting her neighbours to talk aboutr their settlement history and, thereby, gleaned a treasure trove of personal and family stories. From these interviews and extensive research, the book evolved. These stories are for the thoughtful and sensitive reader who will find them both haunting and touched with humour.
~ Judith Ruan, Owner The Bookcase - Huntsville
Wonderful Reading for Those Lazy Days
Clemson in "Algonquin Voices" by recounting memorable tales about the women who for the love of Canoe Lake and the wilderness endured many hardships has ensured that their stories are preserved for future generations. The author is one of over 80 of the lake's residents whose families have been leaseholders since 1905. This excellent book is further enhanced by vintage photographs, maps and water colour drawings. ~ Summer Passport Magazine 2003

Sample Excerpts and Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1 -The Pioneers
     Jean Bertram Pirie
     Louisa Blecher
     Jennie Armstrong
Chapter 2 -The Business Women
     Annie Fraser - Mowat Lodge Proprietress
     Molly Cox Colson
     Marg McColl,Isobel Cowie,Janey Roberts and Fran Smith
     Edith Webb
Chapter 3 -The Potter Creek Community
     Kate Stringer
     Lulu Farley Gibson
Chapter 4 -The Leaders
     Ethel (Tonakela)Statten and Adele (Couchie) Statten Ebbs
Chapter 5 -The Early Feminists
     Amy Faragher Loyst and Tess Faragher Thompson
     Gillender and Krantz
     The Summer Widows
Chapter 6 -The Ghosts
Bibliography

Annie Fraser - Mowat Lodge Proprietress

In 1907 Annie Fraser and her husband Shannon moved to the small town of Mowat on the northwest shores of Canoe Lake. Shannon Fraser had been appointed to supervise the settling and dismantling of the then bankrupt Canoe Lake Mills. In trying to piece together what had happened, Annie discovered that the unraveling of the fortunes of the Gilmour Brothers had begun with their disastrous 1896 attempt to haul logs from Algonquin Park to Trenton.²⁷ The mission of Canoe Lake Mills was to prepare "deals," wooden planks 3 to 4 inches thick that were to be shipped to specialty mills to be cut into the sizes needed to build houses and furniture. Gilmour was granted a 10-year "license of occupation "for $40 per year, covering 326 acres west and a short way south of Potter Creek near the Gilmour logging camp. The tote road from Tea Lake was extended north and a huge boiler was hauled up from the Dorset pump house. Nine teams of horses were used to pull the boiler on birch rollers that wore out almost as fast as the men could cut them. The construction workers worked three shifts per day to get the mill in operation in time for the spring log drive of 1897. Canoe Lake was apparently at the time a complete mass of floating logs. The official conditions of granting such a license included:

The licensees shall keep the said premises clean and in good sanitary condition,free from filth,rubbish or debris.
The licensees shall properly survey and layout in lots and trees... on which it is proposed to erect workmen's houses ...all dwellings ...shall be of good construction ...and when made of boards they shall be painted or whitewashed.
The licensees shall pay one-half the salary of a Park Ranger whose duty it shall be, amongst, other things, to see that no such violations occurs.²⁸

Gilmour must have been aware that this location was near the new Ottawa, Arnprior and Parry Sound railway line then being built by J.R.Booth. The Ottawa, Arnprior and Parry Sound railway officially opened in early 1897 and ran from Depot Harbour on Georgian Bay to Arnprior and traveled 36 miles through Algonquin Park. Canoe Lake Station was established at the north end of Potter Creek and Joe Lake Station a little to the east on Joe Lake. It had a water tank, pump house and numerous sidings. As the creek was a lower elevation than the railway station, a baggage chute was built to move luggage from the train down to water's edge. Like logs on a flume, the baggage would fly down the hill to the dock and be loaded into boats or canoes waiting at creekside. It's been said that in the early 1900s, trains would pass every 20 minutes carrying grain from the west among other aluable cargo. Mrs.Ratan, the railway section boss's wife, was the first station mistress. She tried to keep the place clean and in a fit of pique one day posted a sign in the station waiting room:

"Gentlemen WILL not,
Ladies DO not,
Others MUST not
Spit on the floor."²⁹
Soon after the new railway opened, a 2.4-kilometer rail spur called the "Gilmour Spur " was built from the main line at Canoe Lake station to the new mill. A switching station was erected in an open area of sand and gravel called Sim's Pit, a mile east of Joe Lake Station. Later,Sim's Pit served as a layover spot for an extra railway crew posted during World War I to provide lookouts against train sabotage. In 1903 J.R.Booth sold the Ottawa, Arnprior and Parry Sound Railway to the Grand Trunk Railway System. In 1923 Grand Trunk itself was purchased by the Canadian National Railway, which went through the northern part of the park at Brent and Kiosk.
For Annie it was hard to believe that the little town of Mowat with its 205 residents had at one time been home to more than 700 people clustered around the Gilmour mill and the railway line.³⁰ A post office was established in 1897 with E.T.Marsh as the first postmaster. At that time, Mowat had a hospital, a boarding house, stables for 50 teams of horses, a large warehouse, cookhouse, arious storehouses, farm buildings, shacks and a small cemetery up on a knoll northwest of town. The cemetery's only occupant for many years was James Watson, who had died in 1897 in a mill accident. His fellow workers engraved the following inscription:

"Remember Comrades (when passing by), As you are now, so once was I. As I am now so you shall be, Prepare thyself to follow me."³¹

Later, in 1915, a black throat diphtheria epidemic took the life of 8-year-old Alexander Hayhurst who was also then buried there. But it wasn't until the temporary interment of Tom Thomson in 1917, marked today by a small white cross, that the cemetery got its air of mystery and intrigue.
Because there were so many children, the Gilmour employees asked for a school. A grant of $100 was received from the Ontario Department of Education to do so. With additional contributions from parents, a teacher was hired at a $200 annual salary and a schoolhouse was built just off the road that joined Canoe Lake Station to Mowat. Unfortunately, after the area was reforested in the 1960s, all of the landmarks that might have indicated where the school was located disappeared. The best source is a hand-drawn map, published in 2000, based on the recollections of Eleanor Mooney Wright.³²
In 1898 prices for white pine dropped, so the Gilmours decided to stockpile most of the top grade lumber. In order to create a large enough storage area, sawdust, pine slabs and inferior logs were dumped into the lake along side of the mill until it made a solid surface. This became known as the "chip yard." By 1900 the whole logging scheme and Canoe Lake Millswent bankrupt. The Gilmours boarded up their residences on the island and abandoned the area by 1901. Little effort was made to clean up the mess or return the area to its original condition as required in the "license of occupation." In 1906, the Gilmour receivers convinced the Ontario Government to extend the Gilmour "license of occupation" for another five years to facilitate a more complete liquidation of the assets. During these years, many of the better buildings, including the hospital, boarding house and kitchen, and arious outbuildings were sold to arriving leaseholders and moved to their lease sites. The rail spur was dismantled and the rails sold to Colonel J.J.Gartshore, head of General Steel Wares, who claimed that he had purchased more than 11 miles of steel.
The Frasers spent their first six years at Mowat leasing a 1.72-acre site that included the old hospital up on a hill above the old mill site. In 1913 they decided that the tourist trade had some promise. They sold the hospital lease site and acquired a lease that included the old mill-hand kitchen and boarding house. This they turned into Camp Mowat. A Mr.R.P.Little claimed to have been the first guest in the fall of 1913. The camp, later renamed Mowat Lodge was,

"An unprepossessing two-story, white-washed, wooden structure with a eranda across the front. Set on rising ground some distance from the water it faced the old mill yard, a treeless, desolate area of thirty acres or more covered with pine slabs and sawdust. Some abandoned buildings from former days were still standing (a horse barn, a storehouse etc.) and by the lakeshore were the ruins of the old mill."³³

Pictures of Annie show her to be a smallish, slightly stout woman with wavy brown hair and kindly eyes. According to every story, she was industrious and very hardworking. She kept her own cows and chickens, which supplied the hotel with fresh milk and eggs. At first Mowat Lodge catered to campers visiting Canoe Lake and advertised their ability to provide meals at the lodge,supplies and mail for those who wished to camp at one of the lake's many campsites. Later they started supplying boxed lunches and would deliver them around the lake to those folks camping or picnicking at various spots.³⁴ They also advertised the medicinal value of fresh air and a wilderness environment, which attracted people recovering from lung-related illnesses who would come and stay for long periods of time.
Mowat Lodge was an immediate financial success. It was considered third place in quality after the Highland Inn and the Algonquin Hotel. This was no doubt due to its reasonable rates, very rustic and casual atmosphere and Annie's excellent cooking. There were occasionally some complaints about its inadequate heating and makeshift furnishings, but nature provided a form of compensation:
"Wildlife was plentiful in the surrounding area.Deer would wander across the chip yard and beaver swam in the bay nearby."³⁵
However, as renowned artist and frequent Canoe Lake visitor and later a member of the 'Group of Seven ' A..Y.Jackson put it in 1914,

"The area around Canoe Lake at the time was a ragged piece of Nature, hacked up many years ago by a lumber company that went broke. It was fire-swept, damned by both man and beaver and o errun with wolves."³⁶

Shannon Fraser, known as Shan, was tall with bright red curly hair and freckles. He was well spoken, good-natured, a charismatic talker and showman, full of great ideas. He loved to be the center of attention, though some locals thought he was lazy. For them, his outgoing behaviour was an excuse he made to make Annie and his old mother do all of the work. He never liked to be seen in anything other than a blue suit, shirt, tie and fedora, but apparently wasn't much of a businessman. He had a bad habit of going off and doing whatever he wanted even though Annie and others would disagree. One year, to Annie's horror, he went ahead and advertised a nonexistent open fireplace in the lobby. Annie was adamant that they couldn't afford to build it, but the brochure was already being printed, so she reluctantly agreed. Another time he decided that visitors disembarking the train needed to be greeted properly, so he bought a horse-drawn coach that became known as "The Hearse " from an undertaker. He would meet the train each day and drive people down to the lodge or to wherever they wanted to go. One year he was given an unofficial title as the "Mayor of Mowat."
After 1914 Mowat Lodge became somewhat of an artists 'haunt due to the influence of Tom Thomson and his fellow artists who would follow him to the Park and paint. As was suggested in "The Algonquin Story," the first written history of Algonquin Park,

"Their paintings had to dry before being packed, so Mowat Lodge would overflow with all of these latest sketches. Guests and artists alike would share in friendly criticisms and unstinting praise of most recent experiments."³⁷

Though nothing is known today as to the cause, the original Mowat Lodge was destroyed by fire in November of 1920. There is some speculation by locals that the cause was a knocked-over coal oil lantern or sparks from the fireplace. Annie and her daughter Mildred were away at the time and little was salvaged except some livestock and fowl. The Frasers abandoned the site and moved to a little cottage, bought from George Rowe down by the lake.³⁸ They took out a lease for the property next to the old mill foundation and had Mowat Lodge re-built. The old Mowat Lodge site reverted to the crown in 1923 and later was leased by arious leaseholders. Today all that remains is an oil drum that hides the remains of the well, a few collapsed outbuildings and a cabin built by a leaseholder on the site in the late 1940s.
Like the original, the new Mowat Lodge was an immediate success and survived until late 1930 or early 1931 when it and the Frasers' little cottage burned to the ground. The exact date has always been a mystery as a search of both the Huntsville Forester and the Superintendents Reports (which usually reported on every Park activity)for 1930 and 1931 made no mention of Mowat Lodge's demise. This time Shan and Annie gave up, moved to Kearney and then later to Huntsville. In 1931, the charred ruins reverted to the crown. Annie Fraser disappeared from the Canoe Lake history books until 1977 when Roy MacGregor interviewed Daphne Crombie. It seems that Crombie and her war veteran husband, Robert, had been at Canoe Lake, staying at Mowat Lodge during the spring and summer of 1917. She had met Tom Thomson and become friends with Annie Fraser. According to Crombie, there had been a party at George Rowe's cabin with lots of drinking, at which Tom had gotten into an argument with Shannon over some money that was owed him. There was a fistfight and Tom had fallen against the fire grate, receiving the mysterious temple wound. In a panic, Fraser roused Annie and forced her to help him dispose of the body in the lake by weighing it down with stones tied with fishing line. Though plausible, there is some disagreement as to when such an altercation might have happened. Crombie thought it had taken place the night before Thomson died on July 7,1917. But he was apparently seen on the morning of July 8th by both Mark Robinson, the local ranger, and Shannon Fraser. Roy MacGregor suggests that maybe the altercation took place after Tom returned from his fishing trip as his canoe wasn't reported missing until July 9th, and not found until the following day, July 10. The truth may have been that Shannon Fraser had argued with Tom not at a party, but after Tom's return to Mowat Lodge. Bernard Shaw refuted this assertion in his 1995 book, but an aura of mystery now surrounds this woman and her husband, who likely knew a lot more than was ever indicated about the events that took place that July on Canoe Lake.

²⁷ Details as to this endeavour can be found in Canoe Lake and the Tom Thomson Mystery, by S. Bernard Shaw, 1995.
²⁸ Excerpted from Early Days in Algonquin Park .
²⁹ Early Days in Algonquin Park, pg.20-21.
³⁰ Mowat named after the then-Ontario Premier, Oliver Mowat.
³¹ In 1927, the boys from Ahmek held a minstrel show and added the following lines to the James Watson's headstone:"To follow you I's not content, Until I know which way you went."
³² Wright, H.E.Mooney, Joe Lake: Reminiscences of an Algonquin Park Ranger's Daughter, HEW Enterprises, Eganville, 1999 pgs.x/xi.
³³ Addison,O.,with Elizabeth Harwood,T om Thomson -The Algonquin Years, Ryerson Press,Toronto,1969,pg.13.
³⁴ Early Days in Algonquin Park ,pg.80.
³⁵ Tom Thomson -The Algonquin Years ,pg.14
³⁶ Meehan,B.(curator),Millard,L.(text),Algonquin Memories -Tom Thomson in Alogonquin Park ,Exhibition for the Algonquin Gallery in Algonquin Park,1998,opposite Plate #3.
³⁷ Saunders,A.,The Algonquin Story ,Ontario Department of Lands and Forests,Toronto,1946,pg.169.
³⁸ For more insight into the adventures of George Rowe,please see the story of Molly Cox Colson.

Catalogue Information