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Ad Rates / Articles / Classified Ads / Editorial / Home / Links / Showtime   Antiques and Collectibles Articles   Follow the arrows to other stories Historians and collectors vying for important local relics   By Ted Currie In the 1880s, Ontario’s provincial government announced via an Agricultural Commission Study that settlement of the District of Muskoka was providing important information about the durability of homesteaders in adverse conditions.   These adverse conditions included a thin soil over rock, dense forest, swamps, a short growing season and brutal winters. Not exactly an agricultural hot spot. In the late 1860s, during the period of the Free Grant and Homesteads Act, 100-acre allotments were given to arriving immigrants in the hopes they would create prosperous farmsteads. The 1880s overview from the Agricultural Committee made it clear the governance of the day was at least partially satisfied with the settlement success.   What may have surprised some of these same settlers is they were largely being used as a text case, to see how hale and hardy new arrivals from overseas were when struggling in rather harsh, brutal environs. The reason this project was implemented was to develop future settlement policies regarding a vast amount of similar topography further north in the province.   If the homesteaders could survive the rigorous lifestyle of the Muskoka frontier, then it was likely new arrivals to the country could also sustain themselves in other somewhat inhospitable areas, also known for thin soil, bog-lands and short growing seasons.   As an historian, it has always bothered me that Muskoka began largely as a settlement project, the proponents of the frontier drive knowing full well many ill prepared pioneers would perish during the experiment. Some would freeze to death in poorly constructed abodes, many would starve, others succumbing to the physical hardships, and either wound up in an isolated cemetery, or had enough strength to leave the area entirely.   What the Agricultural Commission may have counted as “acceptable loss” was within their markers of a largely successful settlement bid. The same could be done in other similarly limited, obstructed and adverse terrain in many parallel areas of the province.   As settlers struggled to eke out a living on their heavily wooded homesteads from the 1860s onward, many early inhabitants found they could make up for their agricultural shortfalls by catering to the needs of the growing numbers of sportsmen to the region. Sportsmen had been coming north from communities in Southern Ontario since the mid 1850s; a tourism regimen ongoing to the present. Many adventurers to Muskoka looking for fishing and hunting opportunities found lodging, food provisions and guiding resources from the pioneer community, a relationship that has broadened but never really ended since it began.   Muskoka’s number one industry at the turn of the 1900s was an ever-increasing tourism enterprise and in 2007, it is still the dominant factor in the local economy. With Muskoka’s long-celebrated vacationland reputation, thousands of books and articles have promoted the district’s recreational opportunities worldwide since the mid to late 1860s.   Muskoka’s many world famous hotels and resorts pursued their own aggressive promotional campaigns, and with more than a century’s worth of otherwise good press, the region’s virtues, its sparkling lakes and rivers are known the world over. A large representation of the permanent population still rely on the tourism industry to supplement their livelihood, much as it began in the 1860s.   So if you add up all the promotion, and all the significant summer vacations enjoyed by generations of seasonal residents, (the winter is more popular today than it ever was), it will explain somewhat the interest in collecting local antiques and memorabilia.   Even on eBay, there is a huge interest in Muskoka collectables and in fact almost anything with the name “Muskoka.” Although Muskoka isn’t the only area in the world having this kind of attraction for collectors, the surge of interest in vintage wooden boats and the restoration of steamboats in the Town of Gravenhurst in particular, has advantaged the entire region and inspired huge new focus from those keen on the preservation of marine heritage.   Muskoka has a long and significant national history in wooden boat building with names like Ditchburn, Greavette, Minett-Shields, and Duke, recognized annually by the Antique and Classic Boat Society (ACBS) show at Gravenhurst’s wharf on Lake Muskoka. Thousands of visitors are attracted to these boat shows, smaller public versions being held in other communities around the district during the summer months.   As a result of this huge success by the ACBS and the work of the Muskoka Steamship and Navigation Company, and the newly opened Grace and Speed Museum at the Gravenhurst Wharf, it is probable that Muskoka collectables with a marine connection will continue to be the most difficult and expensive to acquire for collectors.   Second to the marine antiquities, steamship and hotel plates with names imprinted are the most in demand pieces, fetching large prices that appear to increase annually due to rabid competition from collectors. A Navigation Company plate from the former steamship Sagamo can sell for several hundred dollars when only a few years ago you could find them cheap and in abundance around Gravenhurst for several bucks a pop. Now you need a king’s ransom to pry a good piece from a Muskoka collector. Labeled hotelware isn’t just a big deal in Muskoka obviously, but it has been a wing of local collecting that has baffled regional antique dealers and appraisers. They find it difficult to provide a current, accurate valuation because of fluctuations based on many factors; situations locally ranging from the standards of supply and demand to the most recent publicity about the former subject resort.   There is nothing like a story about the good old days at a grand resort or passage on a former Muskoka lakes steamer to add a few dollars to a genuine in-house or on-board relic in your possession. And nothing brings out the collectables like a story about how much they are appreciated by collectors. I’ve seen newspaper clippings of these stories mounted beside the hotel collectables for sale in some regional antique shops. Nothing wrong with this of course, but it is an example of how publicity in Muskoka is regularly effecting valuations for its nostalgia.   A surprising shortfall I see today as a Muskoka region dealer, is the under recognition, and the lesser re-sale prices being attained for the work created by our talented regional artists and crafts people. Muskoka has an exceptional artistic community, in the class of artisans the world over, yet re-sale on these regional collectables has not shown the same gusto as the above mentioned nostalgia and antiquities. For example, you can still get an excellent buy on Richard Karon paintings, an internationally recognized artist formerly of Baysville, for a fraction of what they should be worth based on artistic merit and the artist’s own reputation The same can be said for many other artists who undoubtedly will see a great future interest and evaluation of their work in the decades to come, but are presently not in the glint of the antique and collectable hunters’ eyes.   I have been buying and selling Muskoka antiques, collectables and art since I opened my first shop on Manitoba Street in Bracebridge, in 1977. I had just graduated university with a degree in Canadian history and my first mission was to promote the history of my home region. All these years since, my interest remains largely the same, with a huge passion for regional collecting and ongoing work toward the preservation of Muskoka’s heritage.   I know there are many other collectors who can reflect similarly about the interest in their own region’s heritage. It is not just a Muskoka thing! The difference of course lies in the fact Muskoka has long been the subject of massive promotion and publicity As with all antiques and collectables, art included, there is always the dynamic of a fickle audience, swaying with the interests of the day.   I just can’t fathom a day when the price of a Navigation Company cup and saucer, a Ditchburn nameplate, or a Windermere House receipt book from another era, will draw less than full attention from the growing ranks of interested dealers and hobbyists.   Other articles by Ted Currie   Regional book collecting Book sleuthing Books at auction Christmas traditions       Return to top of page   This Is Livin' Publishing © 2007 581 8th Line West, RR1 Hastings, ON, K0L 1Y0 Phone/Fax: 705-696-1833   webmaster