Aug
20
2010
Port Perry, ON
Author: RockyPort Perry is a community located in Scugog Township, Durham Region, Ontario, Canada. Located southeast of Uxbridge, Ontario, and southwest of Peterborough, Ontario, Port Perry is only about an hour northeast of the city of Toronto, the capital of the Province of Ontario and so lies within the Greater Toronto Area. And for any of you who like to head down to Casinos, it has one of those as well! The Great Blue Heron Charitable Casino rests amongst the picturesque backdrop of Scugog Island. The casino is a striking contrast to the scenery that surrounds it. There’s something for everyone like at the majority of the superb Casinos in Canada, and as you would expect they also serve fantastic food!
Port Perry has attracted many film crews over the years, both for feature film and television; it doubled as the Maine town of Mooseport in the 2004 film Welcome to Mooseport and was used briefly as a small town in New Hampshire during the sixth season of The West Wing. Port Perry was briefly shown in the movie Killshot (film), filmed as a small town in Missouri, USA. The town was the primary production location for the 1996 film, Fly Away Home, based on local inventor Bill Lishman’s experiments in the 1980s and 1990s imprinting geese in order to alter and preserve migration routes. The film fictionalized Lishman’s personal life, but used him as a consultant for its aerial and technical production. So, if you find yourself in the town, thinking it looks familiar, but you cant think how, it may just be you’ve seen it before but never realised it was here!
The area around Port Perry was first surveyed as part of Reach Township by Major S. Wilmot in 1809. The first settler in the area was Reuben Crandell, a United Empire Loyalist who built a homestead with his wife in May 1821. Their original home is still in use and can be seen on King Street between Prince Albert and Manchester. In November 1821, Lucy Ann Crandell became the first child of European descent born in the area. In 1831, Crandell and his family moved to a homestead at what became Crandell’s Corners (later called Borelia). It had its own Post Office, near the present-day junction of Queen Street and Highway 7A.
Settler Peter Perry laid out village lots on the shore of Lake Scugog in 1848 on the site of a former native village known as Scugog Village. The townsite was named Port Perry in 1852 and its first Postmaster was Joseph Bigelow. It was incorporated as a village in 1871. At the time there was an intense rivalry between Port Perry and two nearby towns, Prince Albert and Manchester. Expecting great things for “his” town, Peter Perry predicted that goats would eat grass off of Prince Albert’s main street.[1]
At the time, Prince Albert sat astride a planked toll road running south to Whitby. Grain and lumber from areas throughout the area south-east of Lake Simcoe fed through Prince Albert, which was a major grain trading area. Perry and others in Port Perry felt a railway was a much better option, and Perry’s prediction would eventually come true.
A group of local businessmen started the process of bringing the railway to the town in 1867, and the first train on the Port Whitby and Port Perry Railway reached the terminus in Port Perry in 1872. Cargo from all over northern Ontario was shipped via the Trent-Severn Waterway to Port Perry via Lake Scugog, and then via the railway to Whitby, where it could be loaded onto the CP or CN mainlines running along the shore of the Lake Ontario, or onto ships in Port Whitby. Businesses quickly moved out of Prince Albert and moved to Port Perry, leaving Prince Albert effectively a suburb of Port Perry today.
The village was amalgamated with Cartwright, Reach and Scugog Townships to form the Township of Scugog in 1974 upon the creation of the Regional Municipality of Durham.
An Ontario Historical Plaque was erected at the Scugog Shores Museum by the province to commemorate Jimmy Frise’s role in Ontario’s heritage.
Coming back to today, Port Perry is known as a tourist destination in the area for its picturesque, Victorian-era downtown, with many clothing stores, restaurants, cafés, bookstores, galleries and antique shops. In the summer, the town features a number of festivals, including the Mississauga First Nation Pow Wow, the Highland Games, the Dragon Boat Races and StreetFest. Its annual fair, held every Labour Day (the first Monday in September) weekend, has been running for over 150 years. There are also numerous golf courses, both public and private. Other attractions in Port Perry and surrounding area include the Great Blue Heron Charity Casino, Scenic lake cruises in the summer on The Woodman, Scugog Memorial Library (featuring the Kent Farndale Art Gallery), the Scugog Shores Historical Museum and the Town Hall 1873 – Centre for the Performing Arts. At many local farms, visitors may pick their own seasonal fruit (strawberries, raspberries, apples).
In the summer, bass tournaments and lakeside activities are also featured. The Lake Scugog town shoreline offers two popular lakeside parks, Palmer and Birdseye. There are active fishing seasons, both winter and summer. In the winter months, Lake Scugog is dotted with ice-fishing huts and is a popular destination for both ice fishermen and snowmobilers.
While you’re here why not take a visit to Jester’s Court which we’ve previously featured?
So whether you’re staying or just visiting to experience some of its pretty streets or lake side walks, Port Perry is a great place to stop by!
