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Since the first timber limits were let out in Haliburton in the 1860s, water control has been an important issue. The loggers wanted to raise the level of nearly every lake and spent huge sums making their improvements to the rivers building timber slides, glance dams, clearing channels, and holding back water levels in order to have sufficient volumes to flush their logs downstream to the mills in the spring.

This dam was situated at the outlet of Mud Lake, now Outlet Bay of Drag Lake. A final rush of water might be enough to clear the banks of the river downstream and send the last of the logs to the mill.

The configurations and water levels of the present day, managed by Parks Canada for the Trent-Severn waterway, are for the most part, a legacy of early logging days.