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.
On April 15, 1908 Stephen Leacock paid $1,600 for 19.73 acres fronting Lake Couchiching. That first summer, Stephen and his brother Charlie built a one-room cottage. They called it the “Cook House” and used tents for sleeping.
The following year, Stephen added a veranda across the front with two bedrooms leading off each end.
This was the start of a never-ending construction project including several more bedrooms, an ice house, greenhouses and a hen house.
The two-storey boathouse was built in 1919 on the west shore of the bay. In 1928 the cottage was replaced by a new summer home, now a National Historic Site.
After Leacock's death in 1944 the boathouse fell into disrepair and was later demolished.
In 1995, Jim Storey and Jim Dykes spearheaded a community project to rebuild a replica of the boathouse. On Sept. 9-10, 6,000 people converged at the Leacock Museum and in two days the most famous boathouse in Upper Canada stood again.
