The importance of the Jesuit Relations, beyond the obvious religious significance of the 1600’s missions in North America, is the fact so much actual history was being recorded by the literate missionaries.

Their sketches of aboriginal life and culture, war and resolution, and profiling the rigors of wilderness existence at this period, gives students of Canadian, and regional history, a cornerstone of appreciation about what existed here prior to white settlement. And what influences Europeans brought to the native population ranging from disease to the manifestation of innovation on an unsuspecting population.

The missionaries to Muskoka, much later in time, (1860’s to 1880’s), also helped create a similar cornerstone of knowledge, as to what it was like being a homesteader on the free grant lands of Ontario. There are many referencing texts and editorial passages from well educated observers representing religious interests, recording the way pioneers were living, working, playing, imbibing and trustfully worshipping. And when it was clear there was a need for religious intervention, the missionaries to the outposts made recommendations to respective churches, about setting down foundations for new houses of worship.

The reports these scholarly visitors provided before and after churches were erected in Muskoka communities, are today, precious resources because of information contained within, about for example characteristics of hamlet and social-cultural life, its moral constitution, and the impediments, particularly toward a strong work ethic the social environment was providing. While many regional historians thought the works of the early missionaries to our region were tainted by religious bias, by re-examining their journals, it’s clear they made keen, balanced observations, religious slant or not. Unfortunately, many of these journals were kept in church archives, when local historians needed the information most.

One of the most valuable of these books was an Anglican Mission text, of which only a small number was published. The Algoma Diocese mission work took personnel into the eastern territory of Muskoka, including encampments in fledgling, struggling villages such as Lewisham, Barkway, Purbrook, Fraserburg, and Vankoughnet, plus many hamlets in between, such as Germania. They travelled homestead to homestead along almost impassable trails to visit settlers, and to administer to those near death. There are accounts of missionaries, in this region, risking death in sub-zero weather, to attend a family in need.

The records of the Anglican Missionaries even included diagrams of new churches for these communities, as well as astute observations about the progress toward settlement of these tiny encampments on the verge of commercial expansion. Another of these books came from the Society of St. John the Evangelist, in Bracebridge, courtesy the pen of first Father Loosemore and then A.H. Skirving in his book, “The House on the Hill,” about the monastery construction and operation. The Society Fathers administered to many small country churches in Muskoka in the 1900’s, and the book contains some of these stories.

Although these works have been dismissed in the study of regional history, they are quickly coming to light as being thorough and well opinioned, clearing away some of our misconceptions about what it was like in the early years, tending the flock so widely dispersed across the Ontario wilds.