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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...

• 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...

• 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...

• 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...

• 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...

• Reverend Richard Baxter, S.J. 1821-1904, The
  Born in Carlisle, England, Baxter came to Canada as a child. He studied in Toronto and at the Sulpician College in Montreal before becoming, reputedly, the first English-speaking Jesuit novice in Canada. After his ordination in New York in 1854, he served at various missions in the United States and Canada and arrived at Fort William in 1872. He quickly became renowned for his selflessness and the legendary stamina he displayed on arduous trips along...

• Simon James Dawson 1820-1902
  Born in Scotland, Dawson immigrated to Canada as a young man and began his career as a civil engineer. In 1857, as a member of a Canadian government expedition, he surveyed a line of road from the Lakehead to Fort Garry and in 1858-59, further explored that area. His report greatly stimulated Canadian interest in the West. In 1868, he began construction of a wagon and water route following his earlier survey. It was traversed...

• Sir William C. Van Horne 1843-1915
  Born in Chelsea, Illinois, Van Horne, after a brilliant career with a number of railways in the mid-western United States, accepted the position of general manager of the Canadian Pacific Railway, in 1881. Construction of this pioneer Canadian transcontinental line was pushed ahead rapidly under his energetic supervision, despite many difficulties of a physical and financial nature which would have discouraged a man of lesser ability. Its completion in 1885 ensured Canadian unity. Through his...