Lake Scugog

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Lake Scugog is an artificially flooded lake, originally flooded by William Purdy and his sons in 1834 to power their grist mill in Linsey. Before this time there were two small marsh lakes joined on the northern end of the current upside-down U shape by marshes and small streams. During the later portion of the 1800's, a lock at Linsey allowed access from the rivers on the upper Great Lakes through what is today the Trent-Severn Waterway and into the northern end of modern Lake Scugog. A railway was built from Port Whitby to Port Perry to allow trans-shipment of goods from further north. Competing lines from east and west rendered the Port Perry line unprofitable and it closed in the 1930s. Today the lake is used almost entirely for recreation.