Past and Present

Hoodstown bridge and rapids 1930's

The lands around Fox Lake saw their first development as homesteads, and a small
community (first known as Port Vernon, then Hoodstown) developed between Fox
Lake and Lake Vernon.
The hills around Fox Lake were not particularly suited to farming, and by the early 1900’s, many of the homesteads were abandoned, and Hoodstown was dwindling. Timber became the primary interest in the area, with the Buck-Fox-Vernon corridor being a transportation route for logs for mills and bark for the tanning industry. 
There is some early evidence that the beaches at the south end of Fox Lake were used by local people for summer visits, but Fox Lake did not have a significant recreational focus until the 1930’s, when land was acquired from the timber industry on the east side of Fox Lake with the intent to establish summer cottages.
Slowly, through the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s, Fox Lake became a cottage lake, with a number of small summer cottages developing on the east and west sides of the lake. A camp which was established on the south end of the lake in the 1930’s is now Camp Winnebagoe; another children’s camp, Romuva, was established at the north end of Fox Lake in the 1960’s.
The farm at the north end of Fox Lake went fallow, and was eventually developed for shoreline lots in the 1990’s.
Like most lakes in southern and central Ontario, cottage recreation has evolved. Seasons started to expand to include spring and fall cottaging, until the present time, when many “cottages” are fully insulated buildings with year-round capability, and winter weekends
at the cottage are quite common.
Recreational tools (or toys) have evolved too, and the canoes, rowboats and small sailing dinghies, now include a full range from canoes and kayaks to larger outboard and inboard/outboard motorboats, and occasional personal water craft (PWCs) with active water skiing and tubing vying for space with the more sedate non-power uses. There are even float planes using the lake. 
Two year-round residents have a float plane. One cottager on the west side uses a float plane intermittently to access the cottage and Camp Winnebagoe is occasionally visited by float planes.
Most of the available shoreline on Fox Lake is now developed or under development.  The shores of the Buck River and the Hoodstown Rapids are experiencing residential and cottage development. 
Several backshore lots have houses on them or are available for building. Many
older cottages are being upgraded into larger buildings, capable of year-round
use. Several shoreline and backshore lots are now used for year-round residences.