Land of the silver birch, home of the beaver
Where still the mighty moose wanders at will
Blue lake and rocky shore,
I will return once more.

Muskoka is a district in Ontario, comprising the townships of Bracebridge, Huntsville, Lake of Bays, Gravenhurst, Muskoka Lakes, and Georgian Bay, covering about 2500 square miles. It is situated on a southern part of the Canadian Shield, formed in the Precambrian era by converging tectonic plates; this makes the terrain here rugged and uneven, with enough rocky soil to support forests. Deep gouges carved into the exposed bedrock by glacial advances during the last Ice Age created a number of small lakes; over a thousand of them are scattered across Muskoka.

The lakes and the forests and the relative serenity of its distance from urban southern Ontario have made Muskoka a popular vacation area for people within the province as well as those from without. Torontonians particularly tend to flee to the lakes like refugees from the humidity as soon as summer hits; I was only an Easterner for long enough to do it twice, but Muskoka isn't a place that is easily forgotten.

The first written records of Muskoka appeared in 1615, when European explorers and Jesuit missionaries were beginning to move inland. The area was inhabited by First Nations peoples, mostly Algonquin and Huron. In the Algonquin language, "Muskoka" means "land of the red earth"; the name of the district may also have derived from the name of a Chippewa chief, Mesqua Ukee, who was responsible for signing a treaty that turned over two hundred and fifty thousand acres of land to the Province of Canada, in return for a number of concessions. Mesqua Ukee translates to "not easily turned back on the day of battle".

At first, the government intended to turn the entire region into a First Nations reserve, since the soil was too thin and rocky for agriculture. Then, in an effort to encourage colonisation of more far-flung areas away from the St. Lawrence River valley, 1868 saw the creation of the Free Land Grant and Homestead Act; this legislation gave two hundred acre parcels of land to families who met a list of conditions. People moving into Muskoka saw the logging potential of its forests; the government came to its senses and scrapped the reserve plans in favour of beginning logging operations.

One of the clauses in the Act gave resource rights to the provincial government instead of the settlers who owned the land. This meant that the government owned all of the rock with quarrying potential and forests, and reserved the right to remove it at any time. Oddly, it seems that this was not a particular concern of the colonists; it was in their best interest that the land be cleared so that they could proceed with planting crops, even though the soil was poor.

The logging industry proved to be an immensely profitable one for Ontario; it is rumoured that it alone covered all of the province's administrative expenses. It worked like this: the government would grant a timber license to a private logging company, who would then harvest the lumber and pay dues to the government based on how much they had taken. Settlers were allowed to harvest some trees from their land, but if they exceeded a limit they were also charged dues. The rapidly-expanding Canadian Pacific Railway facilitated transportation of the cut lumber; the industry was extremely profitable until the lack of reforestation practises caught up with it and resources dwindled. Because of this, much of modern-day Muskoka's forest is second-growth.

After the forests had been logged into submission, a good deal of Muskoka's prosperity came from the steamship industry. One Alexander P. Cockburn, while travelling through the area in 1865, was struck by its remarkable scenic beauty and the possibilities for tourism that it presented. Returning home to Victoria County, he sent a letter to his colleague, Thomas D'Arcy McGee -- who was himself a most influential politician, and deeply involved with the Confederation conferences -- which outlined a plan for making Muskoka more accessible to casual travellers.

Cockburn's plan included improvements to roads on a massive scale; at this point they were little more than crude dirt trails made by logging companies. He also wanted a lock constructed at Port Carling, to connect Lake Muskoka and Lake Rosseau, and a canal between Lake Rosseau and Lake Joseph. This would join together the area's three largest and most picturesque lakes; from here, a fleet of steamships for tourists could be launched, accompanied by a campaign to generate public interest in the area. Despite only lukewarm enthusiasm from McGee, Cockburn went ahead with his idea, funding it himself. He commissioned a company to build a steamship for the lakes; named the Wenonah, it was launched in 1866.

The steamship tours caught on, and by the early 1870s Cockburn had generated enough interest in the idea that the Ontario government built the series of locks and canals that he had called for earlier. A number of wealthy American entrepreneurs saw fit to construct grand hotels, attracting vacationers from the northeastern US as well as all of central and eastern Canada. Affluent urbanites from southern Ontario took to building spectacularly ostentatious vacation houses; this contributed to the district's reputation as a holiday destination for the rich and the famous. Some of the houses are still there a century later, and still in regular use.

At the end of the nineteenth century into the early twentieth, to get to Muskoka vacationers would take a train to Gravenhurst, and from there one of Cockburn's steamships to a resort hotel or summer house. Now, Muskoka is about an hour and a half's worth of driving distance north of Toronto, via highway 400 to Port Severn or highway 11 to Severn Bridge, or west from Ottawa on highway 60, entering into Muskoka through Dwight.

Driving there is part of the charm: Muskoka has a number of small airports, the one in Gravenhurst having existed since 1933, but flying in seems somehow dishonest, and a waste of scenery. Much of the Canadian Shield is granite; at Severn Bridge it is surprisingly pink, and stopping for a breather before heading into town you can hardly hear anything over the waterfalls.

Much of the magic of Muskoka is the staggering abundance of plant life. Hiking through the forests -- spruce, jack pine, poplar, tamarack, birch, and balsam -- it isn't difficult to stumble across a magnificent display of orchids, or any one of the more humble wildflowers. Some of them are rare, most notably Spiranthes cernua (nodding ladies' tresses); in other areas it is a protected species, but in Muskoka they are growing everywhere in colonies of thousands.

Researchers from the University of Toronto, combing through forests to categorise the flora, have classified thirty-eight species of flowers that grow wild in Muskoka, most of them orchids. It is something that must be seen to be believed.

The local fauna is no less diverse. Muskoka boasts no fewer than 250 species of birds, fifty different types of mammals, and twenty-five of amphibians. Moose and bears wander through the woods, beavers and otters and muskrats live in the streams and lakes. Pileated woodpeckers, great blue herons, and scarlet tanagers have been seen from the wildlife viewing areas that have been designated to keep tourists out of harm's way.

Geologists also have an interest in Muskoka; rock samples taken from here have been carbon dated as far back as 1.5 billion years. This places them in the same time frame as the Earth's initial crust -- but moved close enough to the surface by bedrock upheavals and glaciers that they can be excavated without too much difficulty.

Muskoka is easily one of the loveliest places in Canada that I have seen, though it has suffered for its popularity. It takes a bit more effort to find a peaceful spot that isn't cluttered with tourists now than it might have fifty years ago; but once you have, the scenery is incomparable.

"Land of the Silver Birch" is a folk song that all Canadian children seem to learn at summer camp. For some reason, it is customary to sing it whilst crossing Severn Bridge into Muskoka, but not on the way back. Best not to argue with tradition.

Sources:
About Muskoka. Muskoka Tourism. http://www.muskoka-tourism.on.ca/about.php?s=about
Canadian Shield, Precambrian Shield, or Laurentian Plateau. http://freespace.virgin.net/john.cletheroe/usa_can/can/canshld.htm
Muskoka, a Historic Journey. Muskoka Tourism. http://www.muskoka-tourism.on.ca/about.php?s=historic_journey
Muskoka Flora: Complete Species Directory. University of Toronto. http://www.library.utoronto.ca/muskoka_flora/species.htm
Muskoka History. http://www.visitmuskoka.com/history.htm and http://www.visitmuskoka.com/history2.htm
Muskoka Towns and Townships. Muskoka Tourism. http://www.muskoka-tourism.on.ca/about.php?s=towns_townships
A decent-sized and fairly detailed map of the region can be seen courtesy of the district government at http://www.muskoka.on.ca/map_of_muskoka.htm
A list of publicly-accessible wildlife observation centres and their locations can be found at http://www.muskoka.com/wildlife.htm