History and Environment in the Kawarthas
Today, the Kawarthas are a patchwork of farms, fields and fences criss-crossing the countryside. Replete with woodlots and transected by waterways, they attract thousands of visitors annually to their parks, lakes, trails, beaches and farms dotted with majestic elms. They are the home of farmers and villagers; cottagers and cross-country skiers. This identity of southern Ontario has become so naturalized that we rarely appreciate the degree to which it is a radical departure from the region as it existed in 1800, and the form it would assume without continual human manipulation.
Maryboro Lodge, the Fenelon Falls Museum, shows how settlers refashioned the Kawarthas through farming, hunting, fishing, tourism and logging over the resettlement period. This era of revolutionary landscape change is placed in the context of the Kawarthas’ environmental history over the long duree. Beginning with the glaciation of the Kawarthas, visitors are taken though the archaeology of the region to the history of local Mississaugas, who had villages on Chemong, Scugog and Rice Lakes, travelling to hunt and fish throughout the region.
The exhibits detail the surveying of the region, and the challenges of turning these grids into reality. They show the local gentry that emerged around Cameron and Sturgeon Lakes, their business ventures and mills. The homes, stories and tools of early settlers are on display, as are photographs of the steamers from the early years of Kawartha Lakes tourism. Maryboro Lodge has an extensive collection of agricultural implements, logging, carpentry and blacksmith tools. Housed in the oldest remaining structure in the area, the Fenelon Museum also depicts nineteenth century household furnishing and domestic life.