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• Founding of New Liskeard
  The Little Clay Belt, the rich agricultural belt extending north from New Liskeard, was originally inhabited by the Algonquin First Nations, including Joachim "Clear Sky" Wabigijic and Angela Lapointe who lived by the mouth of the Wabi River. In 1891, William Murray and Irvin Heard settled here and two years later Crown Lands Agent John Armstrong arrived to supervise development. The abundance of good, inexpensive farmland attracted people from southern to "new" Ontario and the...

• Sudbury Structure, The
  Sudbury Structure" is a collective name for the unique geological feature that encompasses this city. Its central component is the Sudbury Basin, a shallow elliptical depression 60 kilometres long, situated northwest of here. It also includes the Sudbury Igneous Complex, a ring of hills rimmed by ore that surround the Basin, and the Sudbury Breccia, fragmented rocks extending 80 kilometres from the Complex. Scientists continue to seek an explanation of the Structure's origin. Some think...

• Union of the North West and Hudson's Bay Companies
  In the late eighteenth century, most of the fur traders using the Ottawa River-Great Lakes canoe route into the interior of North America belonged to the North West Company, which used Fort William as its inland headquarters. To the north, the rival Hudson's Bay Company exported furs by ship from its sub-Arctic posts. By 1810, both companies were expanding their operations inland into the fur-rich Athabaska area. Their intensifying competition provoked violent clashes between contending...

• Burwash Industrial Farm
  Burwash Industrial Farm was established in 1914 based on the revolutionary premise that low-risk inmates would benefit from the exercise and skills learned while working outdoors at self-supporting institutions. Burwash Industrial Farm accommodated between 180 and 820 minimum and medium security offenders with sentences of three months to two years less a day. Over time, it grew to occupy 35,000 acres owned and 101,000 acres leased, housing three permanent camp sites, several temporary ones, and...

• Michipicoten Canoe Route, The
  The nearby Michipicoten River formed an important link in the canoe from Lake Superior to James Bay via the Michipicoten, Missinaibi and Moose Rivers. The route was probably explored at an early date by the French Fur traders who maintained a post at Michipicoten. However the first recorded journeys were not made until the l770's when the Hudson Bay Co. Began to establish furtrading posts along this route inland from Moose Fort. In l781 Philip...

• Chicora Incident 1870, The
  The St. Mary's River was the scene of an international dispute between Canada and the United States in May 1870. The Canadian government had sent an expeditionary force to quell a Métis uprising led by Louis Riel at Fort Garry (Winnipeg). It chartered the steamer Chicora to ferry troops and supplies as far as Fort William. The canal at Sault Ste Marie was on American territory, and U.S. officials refused passage to the ship because...

• North West Company Post, The
  Travellers on the canoe route to the West had to make a portage around the St Mary's rapids. The North West Company established a fur-trading post south of the river by 1791. After the British abandoned their occupation of the American midwest, the company moved its post here in 1797. The depot eventually included storehouses, a canal and lock, a sawmill, and a portage road. Wharves were built at either end of the rapids for...

• Ontario Yellowbirds, The
  In 1924, the government of Ontario set up a provincial air service to replace forest fire detection by canoe and foot patrols. Based at Sault Ste. Marie, the service's aircraft became known as the "Yellowbirds" because of their yellow and black colours. The Yellowbirds detected fires, transported fire fighters and supplies and, from the 1950s on, pioneered the use of water bombers in battling wilderness blazes. Over the years the service also provided aerial support...

• Shingwauk Hall
  The Shingwauk Indian Residential School operated on this site from 1875 to 1970 as part of the Canadian Residential Schools system. An Anglican minister, E.F. Wilson, named this school for Chief Shingwaukonse (Little Pine). Shingwaukonse had a vision of creating teaching wigwams where Anishinaabe and settler children would learn from each other's cultures. In 1935, Shingwauk Hall was built to replace the former school building, known as the Shingwauk Industrial Home. The assimilationist Residential School...

• Superior's First Shipyard
  The first decked vessel to sail Lake Superior was constructed near this site on Pointe aux Pins in 1734-35. It was used by Louis Denis, Sieur de la Ronde, during an unsuccessful attempt to establish copper mines on the southern shore of the lake. Alexander Henry, one of the leading fur traders during the early days of the British regime, built a barge of 14 tons in 1770 and in August 1772, launched a sloop of 40 tons. These vessels transported supplies to a short-lived copper mine developed by Henry and his associates near Point Mamainse.

• Trans-Canada Highway, The
  This plaque stands at the halfway point of the Trans-Canada Highway, which runs from St John's, Newfoundland, to Victoria, British Columbia. Its construction, in conjunction with the provinces, was authorized by the federal parliament in 1949. The official opening for through traffic of this 4,859-mile route, of which about 1,453 miles are within Ontario, took place on September 3, 1962. However, with the completion of a section of Highway 11 between Longlac and Hearst in...

• Great Fire of 1916, The
  On July 29, 1916, fires which had been burning for some weeks around settlers' clearings along the Temiskaming & Northern Ontario Railway were united by strong winds into one huge conflagration. Burning easterly along a 40-mile front, it largely or completely destroyed the settlements of Porquis Junction, Iroquois Falls, Kelso, Nushka, Matheson, and Ramore. It also partially razed the hamlets of Homer and Monteith, while a smaller fire caused widespread damage in and around Cochrane...

• Founding of Cochrane, The
  For centuries the site of Cochrane was used by indigenous peoples as a summer camping ground. Later it became a stopping place for fur traders en route to Moose Factory. In 1907 the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway (later Ontario Northland) chose "Little Lakes Camping Ground" to be its junction point with the National Transcontinental (later Canadian National). The town site was named for the provincial minister of lands, forests and mines, Frank Cochrane was...

• Forty-Ninth Parallel, The
  At this point the 49th parallel of latitude north of the equator crosses the highway. This line forms the southern boundary of the western provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and most of British Columbia. In 1818 a treaty between Great Britain and the United States designated it as the international boundary from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains. Further west in the Oregon Territory a bitter dispute arose which almost precipitated war between these two nations before they agreed in 1846 to extend the boundary to the shore of the Pacific along this parallel.

• Niven's Meridian
  The surveying of the line which intersects Highway No. 11 here (survey mile post 162) was the first step taken by the Ontario government in the exploration and development of this region. During the 1890s, interest in Ontario's northern mineral, forest and land resources increased rapidly. Accordingly, Alexander Niven (1836-1911) ran an exploration line to James Bay by extending northward what was then the boundary between the Algoma and Nipissing Districts. In 1896, he surveyed...

• Founding of Kapuskasing, The
  In 1911, the National Transcontinental Railway, then under construction, reached the present site of Kapuskasing. Three years later during the first World War the Canadian government established in the area a prisoner of war camp and an experimental farm to investigate the agricultural potential of the Clay Belt. The prisoners cleared land and worked on the farm. In 1917, the Ontario Government launched near here an ambitious land settlement scheme for veterans. The detention camp...

• Thomas James and the Search for the Northwest Passage
  In May 1631, Thomas James set sail from Bristol in search of a northwest passage to the Orient. After an arduous journey through Hudson Strait and across Hudson Bay, he proceeded southeast, exploring the bay that now bears his name. Convinced that no northwest passage existed there and alarmed by the rapid weather change, James anchored off Charlton Island, sank his ship to prevent its being smashed by ice and prepared for the first deliberate...

• Kenogamissi Post
  Near this site in 1794, Hudson's Bay Company employees from Frederick House, 40 miles to the northeast, established an outpost. Its objective was to counter the fur trading activities of the North West Company in the area, and it succeeded so well that in 1812 it became the chief post and Frederick House the subsidiary. Through its existence it engaged in spirited competition with the Northwesters on Mattagamie Lake and Kukatush Lake, some 32 miles...

• Henry Hudson and the Search for the Northwest Passage
  In 1610, Henry Hudson, a renowned English navigator, commenced his second voyage in search of a northwest route to China. With great daring and resolution he navigated the treacherous waters of Hudson Strait and descended into Hudson Bay. Believed to be the first European to explore this vast inland sea, Hudson laid the basis for English claims to much of present-day Canada. His accomplishments were marred, however, by discord on the voyage. Having prolonged his...

• Laurentian University of Sudbury
  On petition of the University of Sudbury, the United Church of Canada and the Anglican Diocese of Algoma, supported by prominent citizens, this non-denominational, bilingual institution of higher learning was incorporated in 1960. Higher education in Northern Ontario had its origins in Sacred Heart College, founded in 1913 by the Society of Jesus, which as the University of Sudbury first exercised its degree-granting powers in 1957. Such powers, except in theology, were suspended in 1960...

• Mine Rescue Stations
  When thirty-nine miners were asphyxiated in the 1928 Hollinger mine fire in Timmins, public concern prompted the province to set up mine rescue stations in Timmins (1929), Sudbury (1930), and Kirkland Lake (1932). The stations provided bases for rescue teams hand-picked from miners who volunteered for the dangerous work. Funded by an annual levy on mining companies, they stocked emergency gear and operated special smoke-rooms for training rescuers. In later years more stations were established...

• Sacred Heart College
  The Society of Jesus opened a classical college at this site in 1913. The next year, the province granted Sacred Heart College a charter giving it degree-granting powers. At first, the college was bilingual, but after 1916, it taught exclusively in French. Sacred Heart College became a centre for the education and formation of young Franco-Ontarian men. In 1957, it changed its name to the University of Sudbury, which became the Catholic component of Laurentian...

• Sainte-Anne des Pins
  An important centre of the Roman Catholic Church in northeastern Ontario, Sainte-Anne-des-Pins was established as a mission by Jesuits in 1883. A log church, now the presbytery, was built to serve as a school, as well as a place of worship for the congregation, and to provide a base for missionary work in Manitoulin Island and Sault Ste. Marie and settlements along the Canadian Pacific Railway. Active in community life, Sainte-Anne's played a prominent role...

• Salter's Meridian 1856
  While laying out a meridian line (a north-south survey line) in 1856, provincial land surveyor Albert Salter observed severe compass needle deflections some five kilometres north of here. Alexander Murray, assistant provincial geologist, examined the area and reported "the presence of an immense mass of magnetic trap". Analysis of rock samples revealed nickel, copper and iron. This was the first indication of the Sudbury region's mineral wealth, but it aroused no interest at the time...

• Founding of Sudbury, The
  The establishment of a Canadian Pacific Railway work camp here in 1883 stimulated the growth of a frontier community. Within a year a bustling settlement containing boarding houses, stores and a hospital had emerged. Though it suffered a temporary set back in 1885 when track-laying crews moved westward, Sudbury quickly revived. Located in a region rich in timber and mineral resources, it developed as a service centre for logging and mining operations. In 1892, with...

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