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The Mayor Of Cache Lake
If you needed help cutting down a tree, retrieving rental car keys from the bottom of the lake, or building a dock, Tom Pigeon was the guy to call. He could build anything, fix anything, and figure out the answer to any problem the Algonquin bush threw at him. No wonder, he was practically born there.
When Tom was just two and a half weeks old, his mother, who was born and raised in Algonquin Park herself, snow-shoed him across Cache Lake to their pine clad, A-frame home with no indoor plumbing and a foundation filled with sawdust to hold the heat of the wood burning stove.
For most of the next 85 years, Tom lived and worked in the park, starting each day with two eggs, cut up bacon, and tea (no toast) right up until the week before he died last August. Tom was as embedded in Algonquin as it was in him.