Category Archives: People

That title may bring back memories to people in southeastern Georgian Bay. For decades it was a weekly column in the Midland Free Press and its summer hand-out The Georgian Tourist. In 1994 some of the columns were published in a book with the same title. Two more books of the Rourke family’s life andContinue reading “‘Up The Shore’ by Juanita Rourke”

Scattered settlers and early cottagers along the Georgian Bay shores relied upon small local steamboats for supplies and transportation during the navigation season. One of the year-round people was James Drummond, a widower who settled on a small mainland bay north of Honey Harbour in 1899. He built a frame cottage and two stone barnsContinue reading “Pluck is all a man needs”

On the east side of Tomahawk Island is a narrow S-curve channel. In the days before power boats it must have been a peaceful, serene waterway protected from the winds and waves of the main channel on the west side of the island. A frequent user of it in the 1930s was an elderly manContinue reading “A hardy homesteader”

He talked like a really tough, old-school skipper. But when we met Capt. Don Keith in 1970 his mask slipped a bit revealing an old rascal with a sense of humour and a capacity for mischief. He’s been gone for many years now but I still remember him fondly though I didn’t know him well.Continue reading “An old charmer”

With packed snow squeaking underfoot, the two young Englishmen shouldered their knapsacks, clipped their boots onto long wooden skis, grasped their poles, and looked out across the ice of Midland harbour at the route they would follow. It was mid-winter of 1940. “Right,” said Ken, elder of the brothers, “let’s get started.” Ron agreed, andContinue reading “Testing their mettle”