Donald Beauprie, Destination Algonquin Park: Tracks to Cache Lake And The Highland Inn

Today’s visitor to Cache Lake may wonder about some unusual features visible there. Near the parking lot is a long, low, retaining wall, a concrete sidewalk and steps leading to nowhere, and a short isolated section of rusting railway track. A majestic white pine is the only living witness to much of what evolved in this historic area of Algonquin Park. Here a once-grand hotel complex, train station, park headquarters, and golf course thrived for half a century. Nothing - or at least very little - of the Highland Inn, camps, associated buildings, and rail lines is still in evidence at Cache Lake. If the pine could talk, it would tell some of the stories about the buildings and the people who worked in them a century ago.