Port Bolster Summers, 1930s and 1940s, by Ken Macpherson

From MemoryArchive

Who: Ken Macpherson, Port Hope, Ont.
What: Port Bolster Summers
When: 1930s and 1940s
Where: Port Bolster, near Sutton, Ontario.

My family summered annually in the 1930s and 40s at Port Bolster, near Sutton, Ontario, on Lake Simcoe, a friendly little community with an 18-hole golf course whose modest clubhouse functioned on Sundays as a church. On weekends, there was dancing to a juke box. Families whose names I recall were: Walton. Turnbull, Carveth, Timmins, and not far away, Barrick and Bawden. A particular friend was Jack Corner, whose father ran a little canteen cum change-house by the lake. Other friends were the Jameson twins and Keith Shier, who owned a Welsh Pony named Lady. The rest of us rode bikes. Across the road from our cottage was a picnic area used by groups from such places as Port Perry, Cannington and Little Britain. I learned to drive on the adjacent roadways in my Dad's 1937 Chev. I often think of those summer days and wonder how many of the people I knew then are still with us!