The number of farmers who were able to live from the proceeds of their farming operation or who were lucky enough to have a source of income from the Township, the Post Office or the schools was relatively small. Most farmers in Machar Township supplemented their incomes by working in some aspect of the sawmill industry.

The logging camps run by the J.R.Booth Company were designed to operate in wilderness areas and were practically self-sufficient. There is little evidence that the men working for the timber companies were also settlers in the township. However there was frequent contact between the settlers and the logging camps. The settlers sold eggs, butter and milk to the camps and they carried cut logs to the company sawmills to be milled into planks for their cabins. Conflicts arose between the settlers and the timber company because the white pine timber had been reserved by the Crown and sold to the Company. The timber company had the concession to cut all of the white pine but the terms of the land grants allowed the settlers to cut enough timber to construct a homestead. This confusing situation resulted in disputes over who owned what logs. Representatives of the J.R. Booth Company attempted to, and sometimes did, seize logs cut by the settlers. In 1876 the Company confiscated 440 of 500 logs cut by a settler in Machar Township. He had tried to barter some of the logs to the Company sawmill in exchange for cutting the remainder into dimensional lumber. On another occasion company men stamped the company mark on logs cut by another settler but the settler responded by sawing the marks off and standing guard over the logs. Before 1900 the timber companies had left the area and the existing sawmills were sold to their operators.

For the next three generations sawmills provided work for the people of Machar Township. Unlike the timber companies, sawmills cut the timber into dimensional lumber at mills in the township and then shipped the lumber on the railroad to markets in eastern North America. The mills hired local farmers and their teams to work at the logging camps during the winter months. A much smaller number of men worked throughout the summer milling the logs harvested during the previous winter. The logging operations of the sawmills were organized similarly to those of the timber companies with the men housed and feed by the company. Working men, skilled and unskilled alike, moved in and out of the area to work in these sawmills. Some settled in the township. Gradually an economy was built around seasonal work in the woods during the winter and farming during the summer. For the next fifty years this work cycle was characteristic of life in Machar Township.

In 1876 the JR Booth Company installed Shannon’s Sawmill at the Eagle Lake Narrows and in 1880 Dundar’s Mill at Sundridge, possibly to service the needs of the incoming settlers. However the focus of the company was the export of whole logs to Europe. In 1885 the company continued to make improvements to the South River to facilitate the floating of whole logs to the Ottawa River. In 1884 William Erb installed a sawmill near where the village of South River is today. Two years later the Grand Trunk Railroad was built just west of the river. For the first time, it was practical to ship milled lumber to markets in southern Ontario and beyond. In 1887 a new company called the South River Mercantile Company built a larger steam-driven mill above the existing dam. This mill manufactured railway ties, pit props, beams and fence posts with a crew of 100 men. The mill burned in 1900 and was replaced in 1901 by the South River Lumber Company.

The rebuilt mill operated 24 hours a day. In 1901 it produced 10 million board feet of lumber. In later years its capacity was increased to 125,000 board feet a day. A separate lath mill made 50,000 pine laths a day for use as backing for plaster walls and ceilings. A steam-driven generator provided lighting and a company store was built on Ottawa Avenue. A dummy or logging railroad was built to the east of the river and the company maintained logging camps near Algonquin Park. The company built housing for its mill workers in the area west of the South River, which, in 1907, was incorporated as the Village of South River. In 1904 the South River Lumber Company and the Turner Lumber Company merged to become Standard Chemical. Standard Chemical was the most important of the lumbering and logging operations in the township for many years. It continued to operate the logging railroad and the lumber camps east of South River and later operated a camp in the area of Hamilton Lake.

As the supply of mill quality logs declined, Standard Chemical shifted its emphasis to industrial chemicals. A chemical plant was built to manufacture charcoal briquettes, wood alcohol and acetate of lime. The chemical plant used cordwood as its feedstock. Standard Chemical purchased hundreds of acres of poor quality land from disgruntled settlers in the 1920s and 1930s and contractors were employed to cut the cordwood growing on the company’s lots and haul it to the nearest road. Standard Chemical also purchased cordwood from landowners and employed a large proportion of the workers living in the Village of South River. It rented housing to its workers and built gravel roads east of the township to access its timber concessions. It also maintained a winter road across Tyerman's Marsh following the Old South River Road to access its bush lots in that direction. Standard Chemical gradually declined as a result of changes in the chemical industry. In the 1950s an international corporation purchased its parent company and most of its activities were moved away from South River. In the 1960s the only remaining product made at South River was pressed charcoal briquettes. By 1970 the South River charcoal plant had closed leaving a single caretaker to watch over the abandoned buildings containing the charcoal press.

Although Standard Chemical dominated the sawmill business east of South River, the western part of the township was home to numerous smaller sawmills. These mills were portable and were moved when the lumber within about a five miles radius had been cut. The sawmills were all driven by wood-fired steam boilers and almost inevitable burned down. An early planing mill was located west of the village behind the old agricultural fair grounds. It later manufactured windows, doors and coffins. It burned in 1907. Charles Robb had a sawmill where the Eagle Lake Golf Club is today. The mill was sold and moved prior to 1910. The piles of sawdust from the mill were burned in the 1930s. The mill operation left the East Bay of Eagle Lake in front of the mill full of stumps, treetops, culled logs and sawdust. In the 1930s, Art Edwards, who farmed the hilltop west of the Uplands School, cleared the beach along the shoreline and put in sand to make a bathing spot.

Another early timber man, Charlie Quirt, lost his sawmill to a fire in 1912 and purchased a mill belonging to a son of Charles Robb. This mill employed six men and a cook and had a bunkhouse where the crew lived. In 1914 Charlie Quirt sold this mill to G.C. Anderson. His brother, Harvey Quirt, stayed in the business and moved his mill to four locations within Machar Township over the next thirty years. After G.C. Anderson closed the mill on Eagle Lake, the bunkhouse was left standing and was used as a dance hall for a number of years. James Joy operated sawmills around Bray Lake during the 1920s and 1930s. He originally installed his mill on the west side of Bray Lake in 1916. This mill burned in 1919. His second mill was located near the first and it burned in 1921. This third mill was on the north end of the lake and burned in 1935. His mills employed about 30 men. Three different mills were located on the shores of Hamilton Lake. The first operated from 1890 until 1908. The last mill burned in 1947.

W.G. Tough owned four sawmills in four locations between 1925 and 1950. Three of the mills were in Machar Township. The last was located on Deer Lake in Lount Township and operated from about 1930 to 1950. Tough’s mills employed about twenty men and a cook. Between 1890 and 1970 some thirty sawmills operated in Machar Township, not including several two or three one-man operations.

The work of the lumber companies was seasonal. Woods work was done during the winter and saw-milling was done during the summer. Extra men were hired in the fall to harvest the timber while snow was on the ground while a smaller number of permanent employees worked in the yard and in the sawmill processing the logs into sown lumber during the summer. Milling commenced as soon as the logs thawed in the spring and continued until around Christmas or until the supply of logs was exhausted. During the summer the sawmills employed from as few as two or three to as many as 100 men depending upon the size of the mill and the finished product being made. Each mill had a crew of semi-skilled yard workers who delivered the saw logs to the head saw. There a sawyer, operating a circular saw, cut the log into boards of whatever dimensions the market and log called for. The boards then passed to a trim saw that cut the boards into standard lengths. After leaving the trim saw the boards were graded and stacked. The stacked lumber was air dried and, in some mills, passed through a planer. A few mills further processed the lumber into doors and windows. Most mills custom-cut to the customer’s order whenever possible.

The men working in the sawmills were more likely to be full-time employees than the woods workers, some of whom were local farmers. The sawmill workers were members of the industrial working class and were often highly skilled in their trade. The mills were powered by steam machinery and employed one or two firemen to operate and maintain the boiler. The sawyer, the trimmer and the slab saw operators often maintained their own blades and sharpened their saws at the noon hour and before beginning work in the morning. The mills frequently employed a blacksmith and a millwright. A teamster kept the mules or horses in working condition and maintained the rigging used to haul the logs from the woods to the sawmill.

With the return of cold weather in the fall, and especially after the lakes and swamps were frozen over after Christmas, the woods work commenced. The work of harvesting the timber was greatly facilitated by the cold weather because the frozen swamps and lakes were used as roadways. The winter roads made by the logging companies are sometimes called swamp roads. These roads were used only during the winter months and, unlike the township roads, cut across property lines. Winter roads avoided hills and followed gentle inclines, lakes and swamps. They were designed for heavily-loaded sleighs pulled by teams of horses. Some of the winter roads were used to deliver lumber to the railroad station at South River. As early as 1894 a lumbering road was built as a shortcut in the Mandeville community. By 1900 there was a winter road from Rat Lake in the Stewart Bay community to the village of South River. In the 1930s a winter road ran from the south end of Deer Lake in Lount Township to East Bay on Eagle Lake and then through the woods to South River. This road crossed Eagle Lake south of the Narrows, left East Bay at lot 27, concession 4 and proceeded through lot 20, concession 3 to the 4th Concession Road and then on to South River. The public used these roads as well as the logging companies but the loggers maintained them. Winter roads were also built to access standing timber. The same roads were used year after year and many of the logging roads in use today were at one time cut as winter roads. After the roadway was cleared of standing trees the snow was packed down. Water was poured on the ruts to make it easier to pull the heavy sleighs. The men who iced the road worked from a tanker mounted on skids and pulled by a team of horses. Downhill slopes were sanded to prevent the logging sleighs from getting out of control. Workers called “beavers” (and supervised by a “buck beaver”) cut the road, “icers” put water on the ruts, “sandpipers” spread sand on the downhill slopes and “chickadees” kept the road clean by removing horse droppings and trash.

Crews of lumberjacks cut and hauled the logs out of the woods and to the roads. A chopper first found and marked the trees to be cut. Next a pair of sawyers felled the tree and cut it into lengths. Trail cutters limbed the logs and cleared a trail for the skidders. Teamsters skidded the logs to a place along the skid way called the cross-haul. At the cross-haul pairs of men called rollers used cant hooks to move the logs out of the skid way. The logs were then skidded to the road where they were loaded onto logging sleighs using a decking line or a jammer. The sleighs were pulled along the ice roads to the sawmill or to a body of water. These logging sleighs were from eight to fourteen feet long depending upon the condition of the road.

In the late 1930s many sawmills began using gasoline-powered trucks and motors although wood-fired steam boilers continued to power the sawmill until relatively recent times. The use of gasoline motors changed the logging operations and increased their efficiency. The mills no longer had to be moved every few years. In the 1940s trucks replaced teams of horses and it became practical to haul logs from 40 or 50 miles away. The Township had gradually rerouted the township roads to avoid especially steep hills and improved their surfaces. Winter roads continue to be used to access areas where no gravel road existed but their importance declined. Since the 1940s the Township regularly ploughs snow from the main roads and wheeled vehicles can be used even during the winter. (insert link to file 6.4, “Machar Township road 1930)

The first cars in the township appeared around 1914. Prior to 1920 an automobile repair shop and two gasoline pumps were installed at a blacksmith’s shop in South River. By 1920 the blacksmith had become a Ford dealer and in 1928 he erected a larger repair shop for automobiles. Until the 1940s, the usefulness of cars and trucks was severely limited by the poor road conditions. Until the 1940s most local families used a team and a wagon for the muddy season in the spring, a team and a sleigh during the winter and a car in the summer. The poor roads isolated the farms and made it unlikely that travelers would venture into the rural parts of the township. The road from Highway 11 to Eagle Lake was over Bunker Hill and in the summer many cars had to be put in reverse to climb the steep lower part of the hill. In the winter it was impossible to get up the hill in an automobile. Travelers in the winter months parked their cars at one of the farms at Bunker Hill and continued to the lake on skis or snowshoes. As the roads were gradually improved so did the number of visitors to Eagle Lake.

In 1875 the surveyor wrote that Eagle Lake was a “very beautiful sheet of water surrounded by high hardwood land”. The lake quickly attracted the interests of travelers and tourists. In 1916 the owner of the South River Mercantile Company was the first to build a summer home on Eagle Lake. By 1920 parties of hunters were arriving in the township by train to hunt deer. Local families provided accommodation and acted as guides. In 1922 Henry Minor and a partner built a lodge on the south end of the lake to accommodate hunters and tourists. This lodge still exists and is until recently called the Hockey Opportunity Camp. In 1924 the engineer who operated the hydroelectric plant at South River before the War purchased the peninsula now called McLean’s Point and built a summer home there. Within the next two years, three other cottages were built on the lake and larger numbers of city residents were visiting the lake to bathe and fish. In the 1920s a group of local men organized an association called the Cottager’s Syndicate and purchased property on which to build weekend cottages. This property later became the Rainbow Bay Resort. In 1932 the Robb farm on the shores of East Bay was subdivided for cottages and 1938 Art Edward’s had his lakeshore surveyed into lots with each having 75 feet of lakeshore frontage.

Farmers with lakefront property gradually either sold out or subdivided and sold lots along the lakeshore. Existing farmhouses near the lake were sold and converted into summer homes. Sometimes local men built cottages and sold them but more often cottagers purchased lots from a developer and either built the cottages themselves or contracted the work to local carpenters. Often the cottage began as a simple lean-to or a tent. Each year the cottager made improvements until he had a cabin and eventually a house. After the Second World War the number of cottages increased rapidly and by the 1950s dozens of cottages lined the lake. Many of the cottages were built on the eastern shore of the lake to take advantage of the prevailing winds and the magnificent sunsets visible across the lake. Local families sometimes own a cottage on the lake but most of the owners are from southern Ontario. Most of the cottages are occupied from June until August every year and then visited occasionally on holidays until Christmas. In recent years some of the cottages have been converted into year-round residences, especially on the southern end of the lake.

Local farmers worked as carpenters and caretakers for the cottagers and sold them firewood and other supplies. Before electricity came to the lake, Henry Erven delivered lake ice three times a week for use in iceboxes. Milk, meat and produce were also available from the surrounding farms. In the 1950s milk was delivered every other day by Johnson’s Dairy and two South River merchants sent out a catering wagon three days a week with supplies and food. Taxis from South River provided rides and carried messages to and from the train station.

Before 1950 the poor condition of the roads made a trip to Eagle Lake an event to remember. Traffic on Highway 11 north of Lake Simcoe always backed up on summer weekends as tourists fled Toronto for their cabins in Muskoka and Parry Sound. Until the 1930s the road to the Eagle Lake was over Bunker Hill whose steep eastern slope stalled many passenger cars. There was no bridge across the Narrows at Eagle Lake until 1915. A raft ferried pedestrians and horses waded across. A wooden bridge replaced the raft in 1915. In the 1950s the bridge was damaged when a steam-driven thrashing machine broke a support beam and fell through. The old bridge was replaced with a two-lane bridge. People going to cottages on East Bay turned south at Park’s Corners onto the old Muskoka Colonization Road. They parked their cars at the Art Edwards’ farm at the western end of the 2nd Concession Road and walked down the hill to their cottages on the lake. In the 1930s Art Edwards and Henry Erven built a road along the eastern shore of Eagle Lake to move farm machinery between their farms and around 1938 the township agreed to improve this road and extend it to connect to the Eagle Lake Road. This road is now called East Bay Road. Sometime after 1940 the road to Eagle Lake was rerouted to bypass the steep hill at Bunker Hill. In the middle 1950s the Province of Ontario opened the Mikisew Provincial Park on the west side of Eagle Lake and the Eagle Lake Road was improved and paved from Highway 11 to the park’s entrance. In the summer of 1951 Ontario Hydro extended the electrical grid to the lake. With the roads improved and electricity extended to the lake, the number of cottages increased yearly and the tourist trade became an important factor in the Township’s economy.