Ottelyn Addison, "Canoeing and Camping", Early Days in Algonquin Park, 1974

[…] Before 1920 a guide was considered absolutely essential to a successful fishing trip. Guiding was a lucrative business for the winter woods’ worker or trapper.

The Mowat Lodge brochure says:

“All Guides have to be approved and licensed by the Park superintendent. As most of these men live some distance from Canoe Lake, and the demand exceeds the supply, those wishing them should write ten days in advance to prevent disappointment. The canoes, tents and outfits are rented from the hotel management which assumes no responsibility as to the guides’ charges… though endeavoring to supply only competent and reliable men… The management acts only as a medium through which they may be hired and derives no profit therefrom.”

Each hotel provided a “guide house.” The building contained one big room which provided free accommodation for the guides. The men brought their own bedding and ate their own meals in the hotel staff dining room. A guide paid for his own meals (usually twenty-five cents) if he was not under contract to a party, otherwise the employers paid the guide’s food bill. In 1893, James Wilson paid his guide, who supplied his own canoe, $2.00 a day. Until 1920, a guide earned three dollars a day and, if he used his own canoe, he received an additional fifty cents a day. These rates were increased the next year to four dollars a day and one dollar extra for the guide’s canoe. If a junior guide was employed he earned half as much. […]

George Rowe stayed near Mowat Lodge and worked as a general handyman and guided during the summer. Before coming to the Park to work at the Gilmour Mill Rowe had won first prize as a typesetter at the Chicago World’s Fair in the 1890s. When questioned about his preference in making Algonquin Park his home he simply answered, “I like it here.”

Rowe was in demand – he talked well; he was efficient and patient and did his best to make his “parties” comfortable. Sometimes this was no easy task. […]