Mary Garland is to be congratulated on her new book “Algonquin Park’s Mowat: Little Town of Big Dreams”, recently published by The Friends of Algonquin Park.  It is somewhat of an honour to be presented with the keys to a city, but here Mary Garland has presented the reader with the greater “key to Mowat”; a compendium of images and stories of the small community that was established on the shores of Canoe Lake in 1896, which figures greatly in the story of Tom Thomson.  The book is richly illustrated with diagrams of the original Gilmour and Company mill site and its outbuildings, many of which became cottages, such diagrams often usefully superimposed over aerial photographs from the 1930s.  This book provides a glimpse of the small community, including Mowat Lodge (where Thomson often stayed) and its later mills, as it grew and then diminished in size and importance. 
 
To those who desire to know the Mowat of Tom Thomson’s days, a visit to the much overgrown shoreline of Canoe Lake as it is today might be a disappointment; there has been much change over the past century. But a view from the water and the contents of this book will bring those interested in those days of yesteryear far closer than one could otherwise hope to accomplish on shore, and done without enduring blackflies or mosquitoes.
 
Within these pages are the backgrounds behind such familiar names in the Thomson story as Shannon Fraser, Martin Blecher, Winifred Trainor, Taylor Statten, Daphne Crombie, George Rowe and others of the Canoe Lake community, which, in its earliest days as a mill town, once numbered five hundred souls. As valuable as that is, Mary Garland has uncovered information about others in the community far less known by name recognition. As one interested in the Park’s history for many decades, I knew something about Mowat but now I know a lot more.
 
Credit for this book goes, of course, to the author, Mary Garland, but some of the credit for this fine addition to the history of Algonquin Park goes to The Friends of Algonquin Park who produced and published it.  Local histories, especially as well researched as this one, have a long gestation period during which the author crafts a great work, but the potential readership remains near zero unless someone has the courage to make that work available to the public.
 
Published late in 2015, “Algonquin Park’s Mowat: Little Town of Big Dreams” is a well-written addition to anyone’s collection of books on Algonquin Park history. It has 204 pages within a soft cover, will fit on your bookcase (81/2"X11"), and sells for $23.95 through The Friends of Algonquin Park bookstore (in person or on-line). It is a work of non-fiction. 
 
My only quibble is that the measurement of the mill site could have been done with an archaeological registration and report to the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport, but was not (although the offer to do so was made). I hope you enjoy the reading of this book as much as I did.

Roderick (Rory) MacKay
 

Last edited by algonquinarchaeologist (1/04/2016 9:10 am)