Lee Ann Eckhardt Smith

The Muskoka Road: this twisting, hilly, bone-jarring route through the "wild lands" of Muskoka and Parry Sound laid the foundation for today's Highway 11. Built with courage and great optimism, the road led to land that broke the hearts and backs of many stalwart pioneers, even as it launched new townships and became one of the most successful of Ontario's colonization roads. Muskoka's Main Street describes the road's 150-year history through the eyes of people who designed, built, and travelled it, and who settled along its winding course to carve communities from raw bush.