The Bathing Beach, Parry Sound, Ontario, Canada -18. PECO Ottawa.

A colourized image from -18, which we might interpret as 1918 or possibly its just the 18th postcard in this series. Who knows.  Looking directly across the Sound to Parry Island.  A highly stylized horizon.

  • a sunny day, with high cloud, and relatively calm water
  • 3 people in the water and 20 or so on the beach
  • 3 Benches on the beach, 2 of which are occupied
  • the road to the upper parking area is well developed
  • the water level appears low with plenty of exposed beach and at least one of the swimmers wading rather than swimming
  • the lifeguard tower is now moored about 30 or 40 feet from the beach. It seems to be mounted on a floating dock and built with 2 layers of support and an out rigger of some sort. There is no roof. No Lifeguards are present.

Our card is double stamped with a Parry Sound Postcard mark on Aug 3, 1940 in the AM. A cancelled George VI stamp is of the pre-war variety, although its use during the war, completes our picture.

Our author, Bev, is writing to Virgina Caufbell in Media, Pennsylvania.S/he has terrible handwriting but we can decipher:

that s/he arrived in town by auto . The Indian women have been here with a cute 4 month old baby girl. The beach is down at the town below the big hotel. They are staying 2 miles up into the Bay.

Bathing Beach, Parry Sound, Ontario, Canada. -77. PECO Canada

A colourized closeup with a narrow view of the beach facing west. We get a very broad view of Parry Island on the top half of the image.

  • another sunny, mostly cloudless day with a light chop in the water
  • 6 people on the beach with nonone in the wtaer
  • 3 benches are visible on the beach with 1 occupied
  • the Life Guard tower is on a floating dock and appears to be the same one we have seen in other photos. There is no life guard on duty.

Our card is from PECO Canada (slightly updated from PECO Ottawa). Our postmark is from Magnetawan and is dated Jun 24, 1948. a 3 cent George VI stamp with a left facing George VI wearing a Naval cap is accurate to 1943-1948.

Edith writes to Vera Gardnier in Toronto.

A lovely trip here (to Magnetawan I suspect). She has just returned from Parry Sound where it was pretty hot. Fishing seems to be one of the goals of trip. Edith caught one fish yesterday and everyone else is out fishing tonight, although she was too tired to go. The country side was beautiful. It has all reminded her of her honeymoon.