The Kawartha Lakes Museum and Archives blog tries to solve the puzzling mystery of an item that was found in the collection.

Celebrate Sturgeon Point’s 125th anniversary with some quick highlights of its history. From steamships to canoe races during their regattas to large boathouses, Sturgeon Point offered many activities and lure to resident and tourists.

The McCrea Bridges of the Kawarthas is a virtual exhibit of the models crafted by John McCrea to educate and preserve local history. These models are only a small sample of the more than 600 pieces in the McCrea Model Collection, which includes not only the bridges but also tools, furnishings, buildings and more that detail the pioneering days of early Ontario.

In February of 2020, the museum launched a new exhibition “The Laird of Lindsay and the Mayor of Gabtown” (curated by Ian McKechnie), as a compare and contrast look at two men born in small town Ontario 125 years before. Read a bit about Leslie M. Frost and Stanley Dayton.

Jasper Lacombe, a name synonymous with resilience and the enduring spirit of a community, left an indelible mark on the towns of Lindsay and Peterborough. His story, though tinged with hardship, reveals a man who was much more than the circumstances that often surrounded him.

Since 1974, the building has been the home of Van Halteren’s Music Centre, and it seems everyone has heard of the place. But what is less known is that the Van Halteren family occupied the building nearly a decade prior to this– and just what is up with that funny addition to the front? Let’s look back at the history of 8 Wellington Street…

Ever wonder what a German journalist and botanist thought of the Kawarthas and Lindsay when he visited in June 1900? Read more below!

Kawartha Lakes had many small family run dairies, one being Hutton’s Dairy. Find out more below!

Did you know that Lindsay, Fenelon Falls, and Bobcaygeon enacted at bread by-law that heavily regulated the sale of bread? Read more here!

Around the world, you will see one symbol used to signify medicine, a rod/staff with snake winding around it, otherwise known as The Staff of Asklepios.

Lithography once dominated the printing industry in the United States. The small collection housed at the KLMA gives us insight into the a widely distributed print media that brought art into people’s homes.

Nothing prepared Lila and James Sutton for what would happen to their family in the summer of 1911. They just moved into their home on 57 Victoria Avenue, Lindsay where their children could play safely. Unfortunately and sadly for Susanna and Lloyd, their lives were cut way too short.

Phyllis Stone’s family was the last to live amongst the incarcerated at the Gaol. Her father, Henry William Stone (1888 - 1955) was appointed Governor in 1922 and remained until his passing in 1955. Her essay, My Twenty Years Behind Bars, was written in 1998 and reflects on her formative years living with her family in the Victoria County Gaol. Phyllis commends her parents for completing their duties with great respect and kindness for their prisoners, recalls the extraordinary circumstances of growing up with her three siblings and the life lessons she learned from the men and women who served time under her father.

While Hollywood may depict pre-modern conflict with one-on-one, heroic sword fights, the weapon that dominated the battlefield from the ancient until the modern era was the spear. Spears are a ranged weapon that have a much greater reach than a sword.