At the head of Lake Joseph sits Port Cockburn, once the gateway to the upper Muskoka lakes — and above it stood the Summit House, the most storied hotel on the water. In the golden age of Muskoka tourism, steamers carried guests to “the head of the lakes,” where the Summit House rose from a pine-crowned hill some eighty feet above the water, its long verandahs and handsome grounds half-hidden among monarch pines. The Canadian Summer Resort Guide called it “The Ideal Spot in Muskoka Lakes,” and its south-facing vistas over Lake Joseph’s islands were famously dubbed the prettiest spot in Muskoka.
The Summit House was the favourite rendezvous of fishers and hunters, who found the surrounding wilderness abundantly stocked, and its two-storey summer houses, boathouses and grounds set the template for grand Muskoka summers. One early automobile, driven up from Ohio and delivered the last leg by supply boat, was even turned into a hotel postcard — “U Auto Come to Summit House.”
The hotel itself is long gone, and the grounds are private land today; the historic tennis-courts parcel changed hands as a landmark estate in 2024. What remains is the place and its story: the deepest water in Lake Joseph, classic Group of Seven shoreline of granite and windswept pine, and the memory of the hilltop hotel that defined an era. Port Cockburn endures as a name on the map and a chapter in Muskoka’s history.