Jul
9
2010
Algonquin Provincial Park: Cache Lake Historic Site
Author: RockyAnother Friday, and another article visit to Algonquin Provincial Park. This time, we’re not looking at a trail, just one of the small stop-offs which are along highway 60.
If you head down Highway 60, when you get to km 23.5, you’ll see the entrance to the Cache Lake Historic Site Exhibit car park. It’s actually a very big gravelled car park, so you’re likely to find parking at most times, though this car park as far as i can see can be used as a small boat marina as well as for the historic site.
Basically what you will find is an interesting spot – which although is historical, is the result of the removal of various previously essential components of the early park. You’ll arrive at the Car park and walk up to the right where you’ll find your first sign explaining the site. The sign explains that you are now standing at Cache Lake, the hub of Algonquin Park from the 1890s to the 1950s. Park Headquarters, a major railway station and a large hotel occupied this site during those years. As it says, all you need to do is take a 250 metre round trip along the old railway station platform to view four other historical panels which will explain what was there during those 60 years.
You walk up past the sign on your right, and you’ll find yourself looking curiously at some railway sleepers, and a very small length of railway track. On its right you’ll find the recognisable raised platform of a railway station, and plenty of trees which surround both the platform, and even encroach on the track just a little up the platform.
On your right you’ll find the first panel. It explains the Ottawa, Arnprior and Parry Sound Railway line, constructed through the southern part of Algonquin Park began operation in 1897 running steam locomotives. Algonquin Park Station was built in 1906 on the flat area you stand on to read this particular panel. The rail line was a busy freight and passenger route in the early years, and the main way to come to Algonquin Park until Highway 60 was completed in 1936. Through travel on the railway stopped after a trestle between Cache Lake and the Lake of Two Rivers was condemned in 1933. Local use declined over the next 20 years and the last train left Cache Lake in 1959.. I always have a big soft spot for railways, especially the steam railways of the past. I cant help but feel these days with diesel and electric trains, some of the magic which used to seem to surround steam trains, and the odd romance about abandoned lines — has all been lost. Still at least at this spot – the site is remembered for what it was, and once was used for.
If you walk further up, the next panel explains about the large hotel that used to exist just up the sloping hill on the right of the station. The Highland Inn was opened in 1908 and by 1910 it could accommodate 150 people. It featured fishing, boating, swimming tennis, billiards, dancing to a live band, music and reading rooms, a store and even a post office. Things went well until the great depression of the 1930s and use of all of Algonquin’s hotels declined dramatically. And with the rise of camping after the second world war, the Highland Inn was dismantled in 1957, leaving the hill empty for trees to repopulate.
If you head further down the platform you’ll find the park headquarters panel on the left. This gives you a good understanding of where the headquarters used to be. If you peer through the trees and look at the board, you can imagine how it looked before these rapidly growing trees existed. A number of fairly sizable house-looking buildings providing the offices for the administration of the park. The buildings were torn down or moved in 1959 – and the current HQ is at the East Gate of the park.
As the final panel then explains, little evidence remains of Cache Lake’s early days as an essential peice in Algonquin park’s history. the removal of the highland inn, the railway and most of the park’s headquarters in the 1950s was part of a government policy to return Algonquin Park to ‘a more natural state.’ However, Cache Lake is still a very busy place, serving as an access point for canoe trippers, more than 60 leasehold cottages, two youth camps for girls and Bartlett Lodge.
If you head back again towards the car park, the lake will now be on your right.
This is a good spot to snap a couple of photos, and there’s also a couple of toilets there as well should anyone need them!
It doesn’t take long to quickly walk this little platform of history – but its nice to get a sense of what was there, and to see exactly how things have changed.. especially for those who like railways.
August 6th, 2010 at 3:35 am
Cache Lake has a great history for me. My mother worked at the great Highland Inn and held her wedding breakfast there in 1946. My origins are in Whitney Ontario and I was born and raised there. My father worked for the Ontario Lands and Forest…East gate out of Whitney. My grandfather worked at McCrae Mill in Rock Lake and my grandmother ran a grocery store and ice house in Whitney. There is not much of Algonquin Park that I have not explored or visisted in the last many, many years. Algonquin Park really is my back yard!!!!
August 6th, 2010 at 10:59 am
wow really?! All i can say is you’re very lucky hehehe, Algonquin Park is such a beautiful place, i always wish i had more time to spend out there
Hopefully, should the fall nooott come too early this year (like theyre forecasting) i’m heading there in October to see if i can get some amasing shots of the colour! Thanks for sharing the info 
August 7th, 2010 at 12:10 am
Rocky, the colour is pretty well gone by Thanksgiving weekend, the leaves start changing by early to mid-September and are at their peak usually by the end of Sept. They tend to go quickly by early October, especially if the wind picks up.
Cheers
Geoff
Arowhon Pines
Algonquin Park
August 7th, 2010 at 11:45 am
well, technically we’ll be there literally from the 2nd of october, so hopefully the one week will give us a little more of an edge >.> we couldnt come any earlier – but if we miss it this year there’s always next year and we can see if we’re lucky then
.. to be honest though if theres even one bright red leaf on a tree, its more than we get in the uk with its browns.. bleh hehehe – Thanks for all the comments Geoff 
September 30th, 2010 at 5:54 pm
I just returned to Edmonton after visiting my sister near Bancroft Ontario.
I wanted to venture up to Cache Lake but time and weather did not permit.
We used to visit the original owners of the Barlett Lodge on Cache Lake.
We used to have to park the car and Alf would pick us up in his big cedar boat and take us over to the lodge. This was back in the 50′s.
Originally, my father and his family lived over the winter of 1922-23, and my grandfather died there. He suffered from phneumonia, after sleeping out on the porch in extremely cold weather.
Grandfather and the family had been living in Digby Nova Scotia and had rented out the house in Toronto. When they came home, the renters had a lease, so Granddad took the family up to Cache Lake for the winter since they knew the owners.
My grandmother used to tell me stories of her doing ice fishing on the lake.
I am not sure if the lodge is still owned by family. I know the Barletts had a son, but he would be pretty old by now.
David.