Muskoka. Now a magnet for nature tourists and wealthy cottagers, the region underwent a profound transition at the turn of the twentieth century. Making Muskoka traces the evolution of the region from 1870 to 1920. Over this period, settler colonialism upended Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee communities, but the land was unsuited to farming, and within the first generation of resettlement, tourism became an integral feature of life. Andrew Watson considers issues such as rural identity, tensions between large- and household-scale logging operations, and the dramatic effects of consumer culture and the global shift toward fossil fuels on settlers’ ability to control the tourism economy after 1900. Making Muskoka uncovers the lived experience of rural communities shaped by tourism at a time when sustainable opportunities for a sedentary life were few on the Canadian Shield, and reveals the consequences for those living there year-round.

Andrew Watson is an assistant professor in the Department of History at the University of Saskatchewan. His work has appeared in publications such as Agricultural History, Scientia Canadensis, Regional Environmental Change, and Canadian Historical Review. He has also served as editor-in-chief of The Otter, the blog of the Network in Canadian History and Environment (NiCHE).

"… Making Muskoka is pertinent reading for those studying the impacts of tourism on landscapes and the peoples who inhabit them."

"[Making Muskoka] deserves to find a wide popular audience, not least amongst those who have spent time at a Muskoka cottage."