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Magnetawan River Steam Navigation
The first steamboat on the Magnetawan River was the 34-foot "Pioneer", built in 1879 for service between Magnetawan and Burk's Falls, a distance of 20 miles. In 1886, a lock was completed at Magnetawan, enabling steam service to be extended an additional 10 miles to Ahmic Harbour. Other steamers came into service, notably the "Wenonah" (1886), "Glenrosa" (1891), "Wanita" (1896), "Glenada" (1904) and "Armour" (1906). These and others provided the only efficient means of transporting... -
Lake Nipissing
About 9000 B.C., when the glacial ice began to retreat from this area for the last time, the Nipissing basin formed an easterly extension of an ancestral Georgian Bay. The weight of ice had depressed the land, thus providing an outlet to the Ottawa Valley for the waters of the prehistoric Upper Great Lakes basin. Owing to the gradual uplift of the land following the retreat of the ice, the eastward flow ceased about 2000 B.C. Thereafter Lake Nipissing drained westward, forming the French River, which later became a link in the historic canoe route to the West. -
Magnetawan Lock
The lock at Magnetawan, built by the Ontario Government, 1883-86, was replaced in 1911 by the present concrete structure. The original stone-filled timber cribwork measured 112 by 28 feet. The lock raised or lowered steamers about ten feet, enabling them to run between Ahmic Harbour, ten miles below Magnetawan, and Burk's Falls, twenty miles above it. In the quarter-century following its completion, an average of 704 passages were made through the lock by steamships each... -
Founding of Parry Sound
About 1857, James and William Gibson erected a sawmill at the mouth of the Seguin River. William Beatty, with his sons James and William, acquired the mill in 1863, and the following year were granted a license of occupation for some 2,000 acres. In addition to lumbering, they laid out a town plot, promoted settlement, opened a store, built a church, constructed roads and operated boats on Lake Huron and a stage service to Bracebridge... -
Commanda General Store, The
An outstanding example of a High Victorian commercial structure, the Commanda General Store was built and occupied by James Arthurs (1866-1937) about 1885. It was strategically located on the Rosseau-Nipissing Colonization Road and during the more than two decades that Arthurs, who later served in the house of commons and the Senate, was the proprietor it played a vital service role in the development of Commanda and the surrounding area. A multi-purpose structure that functioned... -
Elise von Koerber and Swiss Settlement
In 1873 a small group of Swiss immigrants arrived in the Parry Sound District and formed the basis for a Swiss colony. The settlement was organized and directed by Elise von Koerber, a native of Baden, Germany, who had been living in Canada for some sixteen years. Appointed immigration agent by the federal government in 1872, she actively promoted immigration as an outlet for poor and socially dislocated persons and by 1877 had brought several... -
Chief Francis Pegahmagabow, 1889-1952
Francis Pegahmagabow, an Ojibwe of the Caribou clan, was born in Shawanaga First Nation. He volunteered at the onset of the First World War and served overseas as a scout and sniper with the Canadian Expeditionary Force's 1st Battalion. He was one of 39 Canadian soldiers awarded the Military Medal and two bars for bravery. He is Canada's most decorated Indigenous soldier. After the war, Pegahmagabow settled on Wasauksing First Nation, where he married and... -
Canoe Route to the West, The
The French River formed a vital link in the historic canoe route via the Ottawa and Mattawa Rivers and Lake Nipissing, which connected the settlements on the St. Lawrence with the upper Great Lakes and the far West. Most of the famous Canadian explorers, missionaries and fur traders of the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries followed this waterway. Here passed: Brûlé, discoverer of Lake Huron; Champlain, "Father of New France"; the Jesuit martyrs, Brébeuf... -
Parry Sound District Court House
The court house for the Territorial District of Parry Sound, established in 1870, was the first of a series of early northern court houses built under the direction of Ontario's Department of Public Works and its chief architect, Kivas Tully. Erected in 1871, the modest frame building contained a second-floor court room and main-floor jail and registry office. Increased settlement soon imposed greater demands on the court house and in 1889, an addition housing a... -
Sinking of the Waubuno 1879, The
This anchor, recovered in 1959, belonged to the steamer "Waubuno", a wooden sidewheeler of some 200 tons that was built at Port Robinson in 1865. She carried freight and passengers in the shipping trade, which flourished on Lake Huron during the nineteenth century. Commanded by Captain J. Burkett, she sailed from Collingwood on November 22, 1879, bound for Parry Sound. The "Waubuno" encountered a violent gale later that day and sank in Georgian Bay some... -
St. George the Martyr Anglican Church
Reverend William Crompton, a travelling missionary, founded an Anglican mission at Magnetawan in 1880. Later that same year, construction began on this church. Built on the Old Nipissing Colonization Road at a time of tremendous growth in the area, the church provided a spiritual centre for the local community and served as an important meeting place for settlers. The building is a fine example of Carpenter Gothic, a late-19th-century architectural style that incorporated Gothic-inspired elements... -
Rosseau-Nipissing Road, The
Designed to encourage settlement in what is now the Parry Sound District, the Rosseau-Nipissing Road was authorized by the government in 1864. A survey was completed the following year by J.S. Dennis, Provincial Land Surveyor, and construction began in 1866. Commencing at the Parry Sound Road, about a mile northwest of Rousseau (now Rosseau), it ran 67 miles northward to the South River, terminating here at Nipissing, then a tiny settlement. By 1873 the road... -
Rosseau-Nipissing Road, The
Designed to encourage settlement in what is now the Parry Sound District, the Rosseau-Nipissing Road was authorized by the government in 1864. A survey was completed the following year by J.S. Dennis, provincial land surveyor, and construction began in 1866. Commencing about a mile northwest of Rousseau (now Rosseau), it ran 67 miles northward to the South River, where at its terminus the village of Nipissing came into being. By 1873 the road was open... -
Rosseau-Nipissing Road, The
Designed to encourage settlement in what is now the Parry Sound District, the Rosseau-Nipissing Road was authorized by the government in 1864. A survey was completed the following year by J.S. Dennis, Provincial Land Surveyor, and construction began in 1866. Commencing at the Parry Sound Road, about a mile northwest of Rousseau (now Rosseau), it ran 67 miles northward to the South River, terminating here at Nipissing, then a tiny settlement. By 1873 the road...