Al remembers a summer day in his boyhood when, with his cousin Bud Page, he discovered a long, straight pine log, already cleared of branches. This log, the two boys decided, would make excellent boards for a pine raft, which in turn would open up all kinds of sailing adventures in the Huck Finn tradition. The boys got a saw and spend a backbreaking morning cutting the log into six foot boards.

Then came the reckoning with Grandpa Page, who was furious when he discovered that his two grandsons had cut up the log he had been preparing all summer as a new front stringer for the dock. "I remember him as a stern, kind of gruff man," says Al, "but he was very interested in his grandchildren." The incident became an education for the boys. When his initial anger had passed, Walter Page explained that the wood was too green to float properly and make a good raft. He showed the boys how to select a suitable tree, how to fell it and cut it into boards. Finally their hard work was rewarded with a lakeworthy raft, and as it set off on its maiden voyage with the boys on board, Grandpa Page appeared in a knee-length bathing suit and swam out to join the boys. "We were flabbergasted," Al remembers with a smile. "We had never seen him in a bathing suit before, much less swimming. I guess we thought that grandpas were much too old for that stuff."

Walter Page's legacy remains in the sturdy, traditional structures he built at Page's Point, and in the wealth of memories his descendants still cherish. His grandchildren's children, and their children, have inherited his love for wilderness adventure, and his pride in fine workmanship with natural materials. A century after Walter Page discovered his corner of Muskoka, his great-grandson Bruce Walter Page Clark and wife Nancy Clark have launched the Walter Page brand in honour of the man, and his legacy.