Postcard Memories is a weekly series of historic postcard views and photos submitted by Marcel Rousseau.
Some were previously published by the Orillia Museum of Art and History and in the book Postcard Memories Orillia.
Many of the early postcards promoted tourism by depicting the social history of a community in a favourable way. Beach scenes usually featured a busy swimming area crowded with children enjoying a warm summer day.
This swimming view would not fit into that category. It must have been an extremely hot day to entice this fully clothed family to wade into the cool water of Lake Couchiching in 1909. One brave boy is swimming and the man holding the young girl seems to be encouraging the other two boys to venture further into the water.
An older man wearing coveralls with suspenders is wading almost waist deep near a floating swim platform. This unusual card would be considered scarce, with limited sales appeal other than to family or friends of the swimmers, yet provides us with an interesting window into another century.
