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• Brent Crater, The
  First recognized in 1951 from aerial photographs, the crater is a circular depression about two miles in diameter formed in Precambrian crystalline rocks. Geophysical and diamond drilling investigations show that the crater has a present depth of about 1,400 feet but is partly filled by sedimentary rocks with a thickness of 900 feet. The rocks beneath the crater floor are thoroughly fragmented over a depth of 2,000 feet. Like the similar New Quebec (Chubb) crater...

• Grey Owl 1888-1938
  As a youth in England, Archibald Belaney was fascinated with wildlife and tales of North American Indians. At seventeen he came to Canada and soon began living among the Ojibwa on Bear Island. He adopted native dress and customs, and worked as a woodsman, fire ranger and trapper in northeastern Ontario. In the 1920s, Belaney became concerned that the lumber industry and sportsmen were plundering the northern wilderness and threatening the survival of native culture...

• Jean Nicollet
  Nicollet arrived in New France from his native Normandy in 1618-19 to work in the fur trade. To help build alliances with the native peoples, Samuel de Champlain sent Nicollet to live in an Algonquin camp for two years. The young Frenchman then came to this vicinity and lived among the Nipissing for eight years. He learned the language and customs of his hosts, gained their trust, and acted as an interpreter in dealings with...

• Temagami Post 1834
  The first Hudson's Bay post on Lake Timagami was established on the south shore of Timagami Island in 1834 under Chief Trader Richard Hardisty, the father-in-law of Lord Strathcona. It was essentially an outpost of the Company's larger establishment on Lake Timiskaming in the Ottawa Valley. Temagami (originally Timagami) was not a large centre of trade and, in its early days, was abandoned several times. However, in these instances, the consequent establishment of rival traders induced the Company to reopen the post. In the 1870s, it was moved to this site on Bear Island.

• Founding of Sturgeon Falls, The
  The development of Sturgeon Falls began in 1881 with the arrival of Canadian Pacific Railway construction teams and the opening of a post office. About a year earlier, the community's first permanent settler, James Holditch, had acquired land here on the Sturgeon River about two miles north-east of a former Hudson's Bay Company post, which he later purchased. The erection of sawmills and the rapid growth of the lumbering and pulp-paper industries stimulated the development...

• French-Canadian Settlement and the CPR in the Mattawa Area
  Francophone settlement rapidly increased in the Mattawa area with the arrival of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in 1881. During construction of the rail line, the local economy benefitted from the presence of thousands of French-Canadian workers, some of whom were accompanied by their families. Once the railway was operational, the local lumber industry expanded and Mattawa prospered as a community, a supply and transportation hub, and a lumber depot. Development was also stimulated in...

• Canoe Route to the West, The
  Here, when the canoe was the principal means of travel, explorers, voyageurs, missionaries and others bound for the West, left the Ottawa River and followed the Mattawa River to Lake Nipissing, the French River and the upper Great Lakes. For over 200 years, the Mattawa River formed part of the route linking the St. Lawrence River settlements with the vast interior of the continent. Among the historic figures who passed here were: Samuel De Champlain...

• Louise de Kiriline Lawrence, 1894-1992
  Louise Flach was born in Sweden and grew up on the scenic Baltic coast where she developed an interest in nature. Flach became a Red Cross nurse, serving during the First World War in Denmark, and then with her first husband Greb de Kiriline who died in revolutionary Russia. She immigrated to Canada in 1927, settled near Bonfield, Ontario and was head nurse for the Dionne Quintuplets. In 1935, she retired from nursing to study...

• Reverend Charles Alfred Marie Paradis 1848-1926, The
  Born in Kamouraska County, Quebec, Paradis studied at Sainte-Ann-de-la-Pocatière College and taught art in Ottawa. Following his ordination in 1881, he was posted to Lake Timiskaming as missionary of the Oblate Congregation. Paradis' travels as a missionary provided the information for his pamphlet "From Temiskaming to Hudson Bay". In it, he strongly recommended the colonization of the region. After leaving the Congregation in 1890, he encouraged many French-Canadian farm families from Michigan to settle in...

• Reverend Silas Huntington 1829-1905
  A zealous Methodist missionary descended from an early New England family, Huntington was born in Kemptville. With his ordination in 1854, he commenced a long Christian ministry, serving various congregations in eastern Ontario and Quebec until 1882 when he was posted to Mattawa. Using this mission as a base, Huntington travelled extensively, visiting outlying settlements and work camps along the CPR as far west as Schreiber. Reputedly the first Protestant missionary to reach many northern...

• La Vase Portages
  The historic La Vase (Mud) Portages began at the head of the nearby pond. These three portages, connecting Trout Lake and the lower La Vase River, were linked by small navigable streams and ponds. They formed part of the great canoe route via the Ottawa and Mattawa Rivers, Lake Nipissing and the French River, leading to the upper Great Lakes and the West, which was followed by the early explorers, missionaries and fur traders. Among...

• Mattawa House 1837
  Trading in furs at this junction of historic canoe routes probably began during the French regime. At intervals during the 1820s and 1830s, Chief Trader John Silveright, commanding the Hudson's Bay Company's post at Fort Coulonge, sent men to trade at Mattawa. In 1837, primarily to counteract trading by lumbermen, the company established a permanent post there. Its original site was chosen by the company's governor, George Simpson, but before 1843, it was moved to...