This whole area was open farmland at the turn of the twentieth century. Thin soil and poor farming practices had left much of it underutilized. James Walker was a Toronto lawyer who came to the area to ski in the 1930’s and took an interest in the abandoned farms in the area. He bought his first four acres on the 6th concession in 1934 for $350.00.  When Walker returned home after the Second World War he started buying more properties in the area, eventually amassing 15 of them and 1,800 acres of land. He then began the process of planting forests on the property to help curb the erosion that was taking place.

James Walker turned his properties into a forest by planting over 2,500,000 trees eventually starting a nursery and planting over 300,000 of his own saplings. He planted both scotch and red pine as well as maple, beech, black walnut and oak trees. Many parts of the trails make their way through straight rows of trees and follow old logging roads. Eventually the forest was mature enough that James started to make a profit by selling Christmas Trees, fire wood, hardwood boards, cord wood and pulp wood. He build several structures for his venture that still remain in the forest including the drying shed where wood was left to dry and his own saw mill to cut the wood. Several other of Walkers buildings are in use by the Toronto Region Conservation Authority as equipment sheds and they stand just off the trail on a bit of property that is off limits to the public. The mill is interesting because it has a structure at the rear that resembles a grain elevator. It contains two bays that were fed by a single conveyor belt.

The elevator was likely used in the pulp wood side of the business. Trap doors on the bottom of each bay could be opened to allow the pulp wood to be dumped into trucks or trailers.