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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... -
Mission of the Immaculate Conception 1849, The
In 1849, two priests of the Society of Jesus, Father Jean-Pierre Choné and Father Nicholas Frémiot, established the Mission of the Immaculate Conception on the Kaministiquia River. From there, the Jesuits traveled the north shore of Lake Superior on missionary journeys. They also supported Ojibwa demands for compensation for Indain lands acquired by the Crown in the region. Within five years, the Mission, centred in an Indian village of about 30 dwellings, had a large... -
Geraldton Gold Camp, The
Discoveries of gold in the vicinity of Lake Kenogamisis in 1931-2 mushroomed into an extensive gold-mining field in this region. Prospector Tom Johnson, mining promoter Joseph Errington and geologist Percy Hopkins played important roles in its establishment. Geraldton was founded and grew into the principal community. Of the twelve mines operating at the field's peak of activity about 1940, Little Long Lac and MacLeod-Cockshutt are probably the best-known. By 1971, when all operating gold mines... -
Long Lake Posts
In 1814, the Hudson's Bay Company set up a trading post on Long Lake about two miles southwest of here, close to one established prior to 1800 by the North West Company. The latter had been intercepting trade which would otherwise have gone to Henley House, an H.B.C. post on the Albany River some 140 miles to the northeast. The two local posts continued in bitter competition until the union of the rival companies in... -
Mountain Portage, The
This portage around Kakabeka Falls formed a link in the historic Kaministiquia canoe route connecting Lake Superior with Lake of the Woods and the West. First recorded in 1688 by the French explorer Jacques de Noyon, it was later abandoned in favour of the shorter Grand Portage – Pigeon River route. The latter came under American control following the treaty of 1783, and in 1798 the older route was rediscovered by Roderick McKenzie. From 1803... -
Founding of Oliver Township, The
In the late 1860s, the need to develop a local agricultural base to serve the growing population of the Thunder Bay region became apparent, and when the 1873 survey of Oliver Township indicated that it contained good agricultural land, attention focused here. Active efforts were begun to encourage farmers from the region and elsewhere in Ontario to settle on the free grant lands in the township, and within five years some seventy families had moved... -
Red Rock
One of Ontario's most striking geological formations, this cuesta has at its base granite rocks formed deep in the Earth some 2,500,000,000 years ago and exposed after millions of years of erosion. Subsequently, a thick deposit of sediment accumulated, possibly in the waters of an inland sea that once covered this region. The sediment was converted by pressure into layers of shale, impure limestone and sandstone, red in colour owing to the presence of iron-bearing... -
Japanese-Canadian Road Camps 1942-1944
During the Second World War, the federal government forcibly evacuated Canadians of Japanese ancestry from the coast of British Columbia. In the spring of 1942, several hundred young men were sent to Ontario to help build the Trans-Canada Highway. They were accommodated in four camps between Schreiber and Jackfish. Most soon left the road camps for work on farms or in lumber and pulp mills. Others, interned in prisoner-of-war camps for resisting separation from their... -
Silver Islet 1868
Off this shore lies Silver Islet, once a barren rock, measuring about eighty feet in diameter, where silver was discovered in 1868 by Thomas Macfarlane. The claim was purchased in 1870 by a company headed by A.H. Sibley, and one of the partners, W.B. Frue, was appointed mine captain. Frue waged a constant battle against the lake, which undermined extensive crib work used to bolster the restricted working spaces. Despite this problem and the difficulty... -
Glacial Terraces, The
About 20,000 years ago Ontario was covered by a great glacier, the fourth glaciation in this region within the past million years. The melt waters from these giant ice-sheets filled the Lake Superior basin and progressively developed new drainage patterns which gradually lowered the level of the lake. As the waters receded from old shorelines more recent lake deposits were exposed and new shorelines established. This process produced a succession of terraces, separated from one... -
Lakehead University
In response to a brief from Lakehead educators and business representatives outlining northwestern Ontario's need for an institution of higher education, a provincial Order-in-Council established the Lakehead Technical Institute in 1946. Two years later the Institute was opened in temporary quarters on Cumberland Street, Port Arthur. An Act of 1957 gave control of the Institute to the Board of Governors of the newly created Lakehead College, constructed that year on land donated by the City... -
William McGillivray 1764-1825
Born in Iverness-shire, Scotland, McGillivray joined the North West Company in 1784, became a partner in 1790 and its principal director in 1804. Fort Kaministiquia, the Company's wilderness headquarters, was renamed Fort William in his honour in 1807. He was largely responsible for the Nor'Westers' bitter opposition to Lord Selkirk's Red River Colony, but later supported negotiations, which led to the union of the Hudson's Bay and North West Companies in 1821. He served as... -
Robinson Superior Treaty, The
On September 7, 1850, a treaty was concluded at Sault Ste. Marie between the Hon. W.B. Robinson, representing the government, and nine Ojibwa chiefs and head men. Under its terms, the Ojibwa surrendered territory extending some 400 miles along the shore of Lake Superior, from Batchawana Bay to the Pigeon River, and northward to the height of land delimiting the Great Lakes drainage area. In return, the Indians were allotted three reserves, a cash settlement... -
Rosvall and Voutilainen
On November 18, 1929, Finnish-Canadians Viljo Rosvall and Janne Voutilainen left the Port Arthur-area Onion Lake, 20 kilometres upstream from here, to recruit bushworkers for a strike. Their bodies were found at Onion Lake the following spring. Local unionists and many Finnish-Canadians suspected foul play, but coroner's juries ruled the deaths accidental drownings. The two men's funeral on April 28, 1930, is remembered as the largest ever held in Port Arthur. As thousands of mourners... -
Western Route of the CPR, The
In June 1875, the first sod on the Canadian Pacific Railway's line from the Lakehead to the West was turned at Fort William. A government contract of that year called for the building of a line northwest towards Lake Shebandowan. In 1882, the government completed the railroad from Fort William to Winnipeg, while between 1882-1885, the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, incorporated in 1881, extended the railway across the prairies and through the Rockies via Kicking... -
Great Dog Portage
This portage was one of the steepest on the Kaministiquia canoe route between Lake Superior and the West. First recorded in 1688 by French explorer Jacques de Noyon, it was abandoned after 1732 in favour of the shorter and easier Grand Portage-Pigeon River route. The latter came under American control following the treaty of 1783, and about 1803 traffic was resumed on the older route. Over 1½ miles in length and involving an ascent of... -
The height of land known as the Arctic Watershed crosses Highway 11 at this point. North of here, water drains into Hudson Bay; rivers, lakes and streams to the south flow into the Great Lakes. As the northern wilderness came under development, the erratic line of the watershed defined territorial boundaries. It marked the southern limit of Rupert's Land, the vast territory granted to the Hudson's Bay Company in 1670. Two centuries later, it formed the northern boundary of lands ceded to the Crown by the First Nation Ojibwa in the Robinson-Superior Treaties of 1850.
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Aqua-Plano Indians of the Upper Great Lakes, The
In 1950, archaeological investigations in this area uncovered a site which had been used as a workshop camp by a group of the earliest known people in this part of the Upper Great Lakes basin. Called Aqua-Plano Indians because they migrated from the western plains to fossil beaches of glacial and post-glacial lakes in this region, they appeared about 9,000 years ago following the retreat of the glaciers and the northward movement of plants and... -
Capture of Fort William 1816, The
In 1812, the Earl of Selkirk settled dispossessed Scottish highlanders on Red River valley lands granted by the Hudson's Bay Company. The HBC's rival in the fur trade, the North West Company, feared the new colony would block its trade and supplies. Clashes between traders and colonists culminated with the killing of twenty settlers in the Massacre of Seven Oaks on June 19, 1816. News of Seven Oaks reached Selkirk as he was travelling westward... -
Nipigon Canoe Route, The
Indigenous peoples who hunted and traded here thousands of years ago developed a water route by which they could travel from Lake Superior to James Bay via Lake Nipigon and the Albany River. Archaeologists have unearthed evidence that people living in the Lake Nipigon region were part of an intricate system of trade that extended to the Atlantic coast. In the 1600s, native people began to share their knowledge of canoe travel on North American... -
Colonel Elizabeth Smellie 1884-1968
This celebrated Canadian army nurse and public health authority was born in Port Arthur. In 1909 "Beth" Smellie became night supervisor at McKellar General Hospital. Joining the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps in 1915, she served in France and England. Elizabeth Smellie was demobilized in 1920 and three years later became Chief Superintendent of the Victorian Order of Nurses for Canada. She re-entered the army in 1940 and a year later supervised the organization of... -
Fort Kaministiquia 1717
A small fort was established near here in 1717 by a French officer, Zacharie Robutel de la Nouë. First of a projected series of bases en route to the "Western Sea," it replaced a structure built in 1679 by Daniel Greysolon, Sieur Dulhut, on another branch of the Kaministiquia River delta. It served as a trading post and base of operations, 1727-43, for Pierre Gaultier de la Vérendrye, the famous explorer. Following the conquest of... -
Grand Portage, The
Circumventing 21 miles of falls and rapids, this portage ran some nine miles from Lake Superior to a point upstream on the opposite side of the Pigeon River. It was first mentioned in 1722 by a French trader named Jean Pachot. Following its use in 1732 by La Vérendrye, it replaced the Kaministiquia Route as the canoe route to the West. About 1767, the Grand Portage became a rendezvous for Canadian fur traders and, after... -
Oliver Daunais 1836-1916
Near here, in 1882, Daunais made his first important discovery, the Rabbit Mountain Silver Mine. One of the best-known prospectors and mining promoters of his day, he was born at St. Ours, Quebec, and came to this region about 1870. Among other silver mines located in the area by Daunais in the 1880s were the Silver Mountain, Beaver, Badger and Porcupine. Though short-lived, they were good producers and greatly encouraged prospecting and investment in the... -
Pigeon River Road, The
This road was constructed to facilitate the transportation of mail between Thunder Bay and Duluth during the winter months when navigation was closed on Lake Superior. Demands for a reliable year-round mail service arose with the development of the Silver Islet Mine in 1870. A temporary mail trail was opened in 1872 before a 38-mile winter road was constructed from Fort William to the Pigeon River by John Carroll in 1873-74. The poorly built road...