Muskoka lakes swim finds summer 2016

the glass on orange crush in good condition , however the front label has mostly faded apart , also found an odd older light green bottle , no real markings on it

RCO said:

the only dumps I've found were at small farms which had been abandoned by now and grown in with tree's , I've never like found an actual town dump , there is semi modern now closed maybe 50 era dumps outside of both Huntsville and bracebridge but I doubt the town would ever allow someone to dig them up . as to where the original 19th centrury dumps would be ? is a mystery , back at the turn of the century all the tree's here were cut down and logged so an area that might of been empty back then could now be fully forested or a swamp/wetland type area

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Do you have any libraries or archives around there that have old newspapers on microfilm? If you have access to old copies of newspapers from the early 20th century from the area then those will often have information about where the old dumps were located, although microfilm is very time-consuming. If not, you can make some assumptions based on the geography of the area. Dumps were usually located close enough to downtown that a horse and buggy could reach them easily, and were located on land that didn't otherwise have any use. Swamps and riverbanks were a prime location, as well as old quarries or sometimes just lots in areas with cheap real estate. They were often located near rail yards too, I find. In theory they should have been located downwind and downstream of the city, but in reality they could have been located anywhere.

For Huntsville, likely spots to me would be the railroad along Dufferin, Mountview Avenue, or the forest between Main and Florence. It also could have just been a random spot in the woods close to town.
For Bracebridge, the area between River and Hiram looks like it has potential, as well as the woods between John and Valley.
For Gravenhurst, I feel like it should be somewhere near the railroad, maybe around John Street?
One good way to find dumps is to walk along the riverbank through town, that's where it's easiest to find exposed stuff. Since the Muskoka area is very rocky, one way you can safely rule out an area being a town dump is if there are exposed rocks. That should narrow things down somewhat. And yes it'll be fully forested now. It likely won't be a swamp, but it could very well be on the edge of a swamp that used to be bigger and was partially filled in.

there are a lot of local history books for this area , just about every small town has its own book , I have a number of them by now , I haven't seen anything about any dumps mentioned in them . the library in Huntsville does have old newspapers on microfilm , I have looked at some before from the 20's they were very interesting to read .

I'm not sure about some of those locations , do think for Huntsville the railway area is an option but mountview is site of sewage treatment plant now and old pics just show a farm there . although its likely some trash was dumped in the river there . is a lot of possible locations as back then would of been a lot of empty lots/old farms and wooded areas near town.

Old pics can be really deceptive when it comes to dumps, I've never seen an old picture which clearly shows a dump. Dumps don't really look like anything in old pictures, they just look the same as dirt from far away. But a farm does suggest that there probably wasn't a major dump there. I'm thinking the rail yards are even more likely then. Rail yards very frequently had dumps under them because there wasn't much else you could do with the land since you couldn't build on it.

If you ever have some spare days with nothing to do, I can almost guarantee that you can find information about where the dumps are in the pre-1920 newspapers. It'll just take a really long time, but it could be worth it. Or you might find out it's in an area you aren't allowed to dig and it'll be a waste of time. It can go either way. I wouldn't expect you to find anything in the history books, no one other than bottle collectors cares about old dumps.

One way to narrow down locations is to remember that when dumping trash, they didn't like to make trash mountains like they do now. So they generally only dumped in low-lying areas which could be made flat. This means into rivers, swamps, quarries, or any other low-lying area. If you're walking around checking places out, you can also more or less cross a place off if you see bedrock sticking up through the dirt. Since your area appears to have a lot of rocks, that should be helpful in eliminating spots.

CanadianBottles said:

Old pics can be really deceptive when it comes to dumps, I've never seen an old picture which clearly shows a dump. Dumps don't really look like anything in old pictures, they just look the same as dirt from far away. But a farm does suggest that there probably wasn't a major dump there. I'm thinking the rail yards are even more likely then. Rail yards very frequently had dumps under them because there wasn't much else you could do with the land since you couldn't build on it.

If you ever have some spare days with nothing to do, I can almost guarantee that you can find information about where the dumps are in the pre-1920 newspapers. It'll just take a really long time, but it could be worth it. Or you might find out it's in an area you aren't allowed to dig and it'll be a waste of time. It can go either way. I wouldn't expect you to find anything in the history books, no one other than bottle collectors cares about old dumps.

One way to narrow down locations is to remember that when dumping trash, they didn't like to make trash mountains like they do now. So they generally only dumped in low-lying areas which could be made flat. This means into rivers, swamps, quarries, or any other low-lying area. If you're walking around checking places out, you can also more or less cross a place off if you see bedrock sticking up through the dirt. Since your area appears to have a lot of rocks, that should be helpful in eliminating spots.

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the area around downtown Huntsville has changed a lot over the years , its very likely there was some dumping around the rail yards . I've found some broken bottles and trash in that area before but nothing large enough to be a dump . there also used to be a large sawmill at the end of hunters bay near river and beside it was a very large leather tannery till the 50's , not sure if there would of been room for a dump there

there was also a large swamp beside the downtown years ago , the area which is now Cann street plaza used to be a wetland and swamp until they built a plaza there , if anything was dumped there its certainly lost by now

more on Huntsville , parents had mentioned they saw an old 1926 book about Huntsville in a thrift store silent auction , I wasn't really sure what they were talking about as I had never heard of such a book . went to look at it and it appears to be a souvenir book published in 1926 as part of "old home week " which was not about old homes in town but rather a way to get people who had moved away or tourists to come to town . a lot of information about the town in it , old businesses, hotels , school and famous people . it be interesting to see what it goes for , I'd like to acquire it but not going to pay something crazy .

nothing about the dump but was a neat aerial picture of the town from 1925 taken from hunters bay looking in ( not the normal views which were taken from lookout looking down on the town ) , tough to tell from pic where any dumps might of been , it looked pretty clean in some of the railway areas in that part of town but the lake was more industrial and you could see logs and such along shore waiting to go to mills ,

went back to take another look at the book , got a picture of the picture from air of Huntsville 1925 .
some things I can identify from the picture
- rail lines remain in the same location in 1925 as today
- core of the downtown was built up back then as it is today
- some areas that were small farms are now homes or small subdivisions , like area to north of hunters bay .
- also not many large trees in this picture when compared to today , most of the large trees had been cut down earlier
- can see logs being stored in the lake and evidence of logging

Yeah the Cann plaza area looks like a likely spot for an old dump, shame that it's all been built up. I'm not sure how big a dump a town that size would produce, so I'm not sure what you should be looking for exactly. From that aerial photo I don't get the sense that the rail yard was used as a dump in that era, but it could have been earlier. It looks like the shore in the right foreground could be a dump, hard to tell with that resolution. From the air, dumps tend to have an ashy look in black and white. Have you ever kayaked around that area? The bottles would likely be a bit modern though, if it was still in use in 1925, except for milks and sodas. Really the best way to find dumps is to just walk around in every bit of forested area you can find near the centre of town. That's how I found all the spots I frequent, I found a lot of locations through research but none of them were places that I could actually dig or had anything on the surface.

( this article talks about old dumps in the area , it says there is over 109 known waste disposal sites in the region , 35 on district land and 74 on private property . these aren't likely very old dumps and mostly from 50's- 70's era , they mention one in Huntsville on ravenscliffe road which is behind the fairgrounds , I'm thinking its a fairly modern dump that would of been used in 50's- 70's and closed when new Huntsville dump opened but I'm really not sure when it opened )



May 20, 2016 | Vote 0 0 Old landfill reviews underway to aid development in Muskoka


CHAFFEY LANDFILL

File PhotoChaffey Landfill, a closed dump off Ravenscliffe Road in Huntsville, is one of two waste management sites on the province's environmental protection radar.




SIDEBAR

District-controlled waste disposal sites in need of D4 assessments:
Town/Township Number of Sites
Township of Muskoka Lakes – 11
Town of Bracebridge – 3
Town of Gravenhurst – 3
Town of Huntsville – 3
Township of Lake of Bays – 2
Township of Georgian Bay – 2
Total: 24
*Source: District of Muskoka Engineering and Public Works Department



Huntsville Forester By Alison Brownlee
MUSKOKA – Some of the region’s buried secrets are now under the microscope.
The District of Muskoka has prioritized assessments of 24 closed landfills across the region and plans to start half of those assessments this spring. The assessments are needed before development can happen on properties near the landfills, as per the province’s guideline D4, which controls land use on or near landfills and dumps.
http://www.muskokaregion.com/news-s...views-underway-to-aid-development-in-muskoka/

( this article indicates the chaffey landfill was being used from 1940's till 80's for huntsville's trash but mystery is where was the garbage going pre 1940's ? )


Nov 14, 2013 | Vote 0 0 [h=1]Report on old Chaffey Landfill shows seeps[/h][h=2]Closed dump affecting neighbouring wetland[/h]
Huntsville Forester By Alison Brownlee
HUNTSVILLE – A landfill site in Huntsville closed more than three decades ago is back in the spotlight.
Kelly Pender, chief administrative officer for the Town of Huntsville, said the Ministry of the Environment has asked for an abatement plan for the old Chaffey Landfill site near the Huntsville fairgrounds off Ravenscliffe Road.
“The abatement plan looks at what work needs to be done to ensure that the garbage is contained,” said Pender.
The landfill, according to a staff report, was operational from the 1940s to the early 1980s.
“There was a closure plan done for it, but it was never filed, for some reason,” said Pender.

http://www.muskokaregion.com/news-story/4208111-report-on-old-chaffey-landfill-shows-seeps/