For the last 30 plus years, I have been keenly interested in the postal history of the Muskoka. All together, it can be said, that there is a total of about 225 different post offices within the Muskoka and Lake of Bays regions. Most of them are gone now but there are about maybe 30 post offices left. Some old post offices were less than a mile from another existing post office. In situations like these, it was no wonder that some had to go. Some just were not profitable to be kept open.. Some of the old original post offices are still open today. Some of these offices were just open for a matter of a few months and slowly disappeared.

On the following pages, I would like to show some covers that are quite interesting to me and I hope will be of some interest to you as well.

In some of these cases there will be advertising covers just to show the business being represented in the illustration. There will also be a few covers that are military in nature. This part was hard for me to decide on whether or not it would be included in my military collection or in my Muskoka collection as both themes are represented.

To begin with, I would like to start with an advert (advertising) cover from a firm that was located on the southern end of the main street here in Bracebridge. This was a clothier store and different versions of this illustration are known. This cover was cancelled in Bracebridge with an 11-bar "Duplex" cancel dated March 21, 1923.

The cover below is another advert cover but not based in Muskoka but from Toronto. However, I include this cover because the stamps are 'tied' by a 5-bar 'obliterator "cork" cancellation. This is a nice 'registered' cover that originated from Bracebridge. The "C.D.S." (Circular Date Stamp) on the lower right corner is dated PM / March 11 / 1899. Registered covers are always a very nice collectible item. The Postmaster of the Bracebridge office at this time was Mr. Robert Peter Perry, who served from March 1, 1879 to March 26, 1938, a nice span of 59 years.

Meters anyone? This is quite an exceptional cover really. This is a meter cancel with a very nice fancy slogan. The meter machine is a Pitney & Bowes and this cover is dated on the first day of opening of Santa' Village. This is a very popular tourist attraction here that is located just 7 miles west of Bracebridge on the River Road and right on the Muskoka River. It is still in operation today. This meter cancel is dated May 20, 1955. I was actually an employee there from 1958 to 1961 during the summer months when school was out for the holidays. A real collection item to say the least.