Audio Excerpt

Bala is named after a town with the same name in Wales and features a lot of natural beauty like Bala Falls, the only outlet for lake Muskoka.  Due to water level issues creating some navigational problems for the logging industry, in 1873 a control dam was built....and it worked SO well,...it caused more flooding... and a larger flood control dam had to be built. 

 

Talk about being TOO good at your job!

 

But now the whole area is flowing just perfectly.

 

There’s also a literary landmark at the Bala Museum which displays personal artifacts from Lucy Maud Montgomery, the Canadian author of "Anne of Green Gables".  Lucy visited Bala and loved it so much she used it as the backdrop for her only book not set in the Maritimes, “The Blue Castle”.

 

That very house, now Bala's Museum, has even been given a Heritage Designation. 

 

OK, so getting back to cranberries, they don't grow in water, but they're 90 percent water, and farmers have an interesting way of gathering the fruit when it's harvest time:  they flood the fields--and the berries float.