Port Carling is an unincorporated community in the Township of Muskoka Lakes

Muskoka Lakes, Ontario

The Township of Muskoka Lakes is an area municipality of the District Municipality of Muskoka, Ontario. It has a year-round population of 6,467 and a summer population of 34,000.-History and government:...

 in the Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 province of Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

.
It has been the municipal seat of the township since 1971. It has several hundred year-round residents and is a service centre for thousands of other seasonal residents in the area.

Attractions and venues

Besides the town, which maintains much of its older architecture, there are several tourist and cultural sites:

• Muskoka Lakes Museum
• Muskoka Lakes Association Antique Boat Show (every other year)
• Muskoka Lakes Library
• Port Carling Memorial Community Hall
• The Ferndale Lookout Tower

Geography and transportation

Port Carling is located on the Indian River and owes its importance to its key position on the water routes of the area. A set of locks joins Lake Muskoka

Lake Muskoka

Lake Muskoka is located between Port Carling and Gravenhurst, Ontario, Canada. The lake is surrounded by many cottages. The lake is primarily in the Township of Muskoka Lakes, with the southeast corner in the Town of Gravenhurst. The Town of Bala, Ontario is located on the southwest shores of the...

 and Lake Rosseau

Lake Rosseau

Lake Rosseau is located in Ontario about 200 kilometers north of Toronto. The lake is surrounded by many cottages, some dating back to the late 19th century. The south end of the lake is in the Township of Muskoka Lakes, and the north end is in Seguin Township. Lake Rosseau is connected to Lake...

, so much boat and ship traffic in the township passes through, hence its nickname Hub of the Lakes.

The community is directly located on the two-lane Muskoka Road 118, and improvements to Highway 69

Ontario Highway 69

King's Highway 69, commonly referred to as Highway 69, is a major north–south highway in the central area of the Canadian province of Ontario, linking Highway 400 north of Parry Sound with Sudbury...

 now link it to the controlled-access freeway Highway 400 and the sometimes divided Highway 11. This has greatly facilitated its increasing role as a tourist destination from the Toronto area

Golden Horseshoe

The Golden Horseshoe is a densely populated and industrialized region centred around the Greater Toronto Area at the western end of Lake Ontario in Southern Ontario, Canada, with outer boundaries stretching south to Lake Erie and north to Georgian Bay. Most of it is also part of the Quebec City...

.

History and economy

The Ojibway Indians settled in the area in the 1850s. They called their settlement Obajewanung or Obogawanung, while Europeans called it Indian Gardens. Before white settlers moved into the newly surveyed Medora Township starting in the 1860s, the Ojibway moved to Parry Sound

Parry Sound District, Ontario

Parry Sound District is a census division of the Canadian province of Ontario. Its seat is Parry Sound. Its boundaries are Muskoka to the south, the Sudbury District, the French River and Lake Nipissing in the north, Nipissing District, Ontario and North Bay in the north and east and parts of...

 but continued to summer in Port Carling.

In 1869, Benjamin Hardcastle Johnston established a post office here and called it Port Carling. John Carling

John Carling

Sir John Carling, PC, KCMG of the Carling Brewery was a prominent politician and businessman from London, Ontario, Canada...

, the Ontario Minister of Public Works, was a booster of the locks between the lakes which were completed in 1871. This led to an economic boom fuelled by tourism and logging, resulting in the building of four resorts, two sawmills and three Protestant churches of the 1870s. The Orange Order

Orange Order in Canada

The Orange Order is a Protestant fraternal organisation based predominantly in Northern Ireland and Scotland, and has lodges in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ghana, Togo, the U.S.A, etc..-History:...

 was active in the area, and few Catholics settled here.

The Port Carling Boat Works Ltd. traces its origins to an enterprise started in 1868 by William J. Johnston. It captured a niche market after his relatives developed the disappearing propeller boat and operated the company under that name for a while.

Port Carling became independent of Medora Township and was incorporated as a village in 1896 (a status it would keep until 1971). As it grew, the locks were widened in 1903 to permit steamship traffic and in 1922 smaller pleasure boat locks were installed. The Port Carling Volunteer Fire Department began in 1912 and got its biggest workout in 1931 when a series of fires ravaged the boat works and much of the downtown.

James Bartleman has been Port Carling's most prominent government official outside the community. The part-Ojibway man was a diplomat and lieutenant governor of Ontario

Lieutenant Governor of Ontario

The Lieutenant Governor of Ontario is the viceregal representative in Ontario of the Canadian monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, who operates distinctly within the province but is also shared equally with the ten other jurisdictions of Canada and resides predominantly in her oldest realm, the United...

. He wrote Out of Muskoka, a personal reminiscence of his upbringing and some of the less savoury aspects of local history.

External links

• Muskoka Lakes Township municipal government site
• Port Carling semi-official community site
• Muskoka Lakes Museum article