Looking Back Over The Century The Story of Holland Landing By Dorothy Cilipka Just a little village, typical of so many other little villages, it nestles in the Canadian countryside. Holland Landing, in York County, is only a short drive north of Toronto, 38 miles to be exact. But Holland Landing has a story to tell. One has only to stop and listen. Prologue Holland Landing is situated on the Holland River. Its position gave it a vital importance in the affairs of man many years before the first white man trod Canadian soil. The section of the Holland River which was used by the Indians as a canoe-landing, later came to be called the Upper Landing. From here, the Iroquois warriors and hunters of old journeyed to Lake Simcoe, or Georgian Bay. Sometimes, their destination was Toronto. The old Toronto Portage extended from the Upper Landing to the Humber. It was twenty-four miles long, and its route was approximately that of present-day Yonge Street. A swamp near Holland Landing bears the last traces of a corduroy road, which was a section of the portage. Etienne Brule and La Salle used this route in the seventeenth century. At that time, Holland Landing was also the terminus of the carrying-place to Ganatsekwyagon, which is on the Rouge. The North West Company, Canada's first joint stock company was founded in 1784. Its traders followed a route from Holland Landing, across Lakes Simcoe and on to Barrie, traveling in bateaux. The typical bateau had a flat bottom, straight sides about four feet high, and was thirty to forty feet wide. An annual vessel made of Russian sheet iron but shaped like a birch canoe, was once portaged by horse-power from Holland Landing to Toronto. A New Era The Queen's Rangers began the construction of Yonge Street in 1793. Three years later, the road from York to Holland Landing was ready to be used. Even at the best of times the route, which included parts of present highways 11 and 27, was torturous and difficult.
