By
Dick Illingworth
From
King Township Tapestry magazine, Vol. 1 No. 3. November 1997.
During
the middle of the 19th century, Holland Landing, on the northern
reaches of King Township, was a bustling and thriving community.
According
to the book Rural Roads by Mary Byers, Jan Kennedy, Margaret McBurney
and the Junior League of Ontario, early residents recalled traffic jams along
the main street. Ox carts and wagons
brought logs to the saw mill, tan bark to the tanneries, and wheat to the flour
mills. It’s hard to imagine today, for
little remains. The railway which
caused a building boom in Newmarket in the 1850’s and 1860’s, signaled the
decline of growth in Holland Landing.
But
before the train, Holland Landing’s location on the Holland River, leading into
Lake Simcoe, made it an important stopping place for travelers between Lake
Simcoe and Lake Ontario. Even before
the area was settled, the trail used by Indians on their way to the Great Lakes
led through Holland Landing. By 1831, a
steamboat, The Peter Robinson, was transporting passengers from Holland Landing
across Lake Simcoe to Barrie.
It’s
little wonder then that Rowland Burr had a vision. He could see a shorter and quicker means of transporting goods
and people by the construction of a canal linking Lake Ontario with Lake Huron.
His
Toronto and Georgian Bay Canal Company was incorporated in 1856. He told a legislative committee, appointed
to consider the proposed scheme, that his company planned to construct a canal
from the mouth of the Humber River, up the river valley, through the Oak Ridges
Moraine to Holland Landing and Lake Simcoe, then westward from Barrie to
Nottawasaga and Georgian Bay.
Although
no maps are available today, the route would have cut a wide swathe through the
heart of King Township. Had the plan
come to fruition, King would certainly have been a very different area
today. Industry may have sprouted along
the edges of the canal and undoubtedly, some graceful manner homes would have
been built along its banks with their green lawns tapering to the water’s edge.
The
plans called for 48 locks. The
estimated cost was $21 to $35 million, depending on the route selected. Although given an interested hearing and a
small grant towards the surveys that had been carried out at Burr’s expense,
the company made little progress.
For
the next 38 years the project was revived and advocated by leading citizens of
the day, but the recurring problem was financing. The government was reluctant to subsidize such a venture in a
period of economic depression and political unrest, brought about by the Civil
War in the United States, and the Fenian Raids.
Burr
spent many hours planning the canal and traveling over the route to be
used. Although parts of the canal were
constructed, in the Newmarket, Holland Landing area, it was never
completed. Besides, lack of financial
backing, another reason given, was lack of water.
Remains
of the canal can still be seen in Newmarket at Rogers Reservoir and in Holland
Landing as visible reminders of the dream and vision of Rowland Burr. The plan was finally shelved in 1894 as
wooden sailing ships were replaced by steam engines of iron and steel carrying
freight and passengers more quickly by rail.