Bathing Beach, Parry Sound, Ontario, Canada -45

What has become a standard view. Taken from the south end of the beach from an elevated position, quite likely from the landing area that is now the parking area of Sail Parry Sound. From this vantage looking north we see in order:

  • a sunny, cloudless, moderately windy day at the beach
  • vegetation in the form of short green bushes
  • a yellow sandy beach
  • what looks like a straight line of beach chairs occupied by a few people
  • two swimmers leaving the water
  • the first building on the right heading towards the top is the Beach House with a red roof with what looks like a small external deck also painted red
  • the beach dock stretches in an L shape into the water
  • further back is the coast guard base with 3 or 4 red roofed building
  • a substantial dock with 5 or 6 large red objects on it
  • and even farther back towards the top of the card are two or three larger red roofed buildings
  • the water level appears quite low on this card

This card was printed by the PECO (Photogelatine Engraving Co.) of Ottawa and Toronto. In this case the look and feel of the card seems to be representative of a facsimile of turn of the century cards. The card is waxy. The blurring red colour for example may be an nod to one of the original Postcard problem of a rushed lithographic ink drying. I am not expert enough to say whether this card was actually created using a photo-gelatine process. But they certainly want us to think it was. PECO seem to be popular supplier of Parry Sound postcards and their mark shows up regularly. This card was not mailed, it has no stamp, postmark, to/from address or written note on it.

Beach and Bath Houses at Parry Sound, Ontario Canada -11.

  • its a dark, cloudy day
  • the beach is brown and not so yellow
  • the objects on the coast guard dock are now more clearly large great lakes buoys this time coloured grey rather than red
  • the buildings in the back have lost their red roof
  • its likely my imagination but the swimmers leaving the water seem to be hurrying. Perhaps a storm is coming up.

The card is titled “Beach and Bath Houses at Parry Sound, Ontario, Canada -11“. Presumably the nearest red-roofed building is the Bath House.

Aunt Mob/Mol/Mal uses the postcard to write to her niece in Fairport, New York.

Aunt Mob has been swimming at the beach and she thinks its grand. She is heading home the next day and hopes to get one more swim in. Its possible that she is staying at the Belvidere (soon to be the Belvedere) Hotel which is behind the photographer up the hill to the East. The card was mailed in the August of 1940 and stamped with a PM postmark at the Parry Sound Post office. George VI is looking decent but doesn’t have a naval or army cap on. So this stamp was likely issued before the beginning of war in September the previous year. Our Aunt may be American (she doesn’t seem phased by the war), is holidaying in Parry Sound and might very well be taking a passenger ship back through the Bay back to the US side Possibly a train down to Toronto with a Ferry over to Rochester. She seems to anticipate a stop in Cauaydagu (?no idea?). That might help us figure it out.

These two cards capture much of what I like about collecting these Postcards .

  • Hints of information, some consistent, some contradictory.
  • American’s sending cards home is a popular use case.
  • How was the Aunt’s trip home?
  • Is Barb still around, did she ever visit Parry Sound?
  • The PECO guys are able to take one photo and with a little editing and the use of some red ink change much of the feel of the card to make it last over 3 or 4 decades.

Beach and Bath Houses at Parry Sound, Ontario, Canada -11.

Finally, here we have a black white reproduction or the original , presumably created from the same source as our colourized versions. Without the blurry notes of the colour cards we have greater clarity on the beach buildings coast guard building and significantly greater crispness on the beach goers and beach detail.

These are definitely copies of the same photo, although the black and white card (with the -11) is cropped more closely to the (-45) colourized version rather than to the similarly titled (-11) color version.

This card came from another set of similar cards, at one time likely attached although most of them have been pulled apart. In your hand you can see the serrated edges where it has been separated top and bottom. The reserve of the card contains a picture of “Steamer Georgia AT Parry Sound, Canada 9”.

I believe this entire deck of B/W cards was to be included with this wrapper – perhaps all the card folded together.

It is not of standard postcard format, although it does have a place for date and addressing. The best I can figure is that the deck was meant to be sent inside a larger envelope that would contain this Correspondence card and all the other photo cards.

Separately and of no significance. Why put a Period “.” after the word CORRESPONDENCE? Troubling.