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141 plaques found that match your criteria
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Founding of Killarney, The
Etienne-Augustin de la Morandière, fur trader and founder of Killarney, settled here in 1820, when this locality, on the voyageurs' canoe route to the Northwest, was known as Shebahonaning ("narrow channel"). A substantial trading establishment, built by La Morandière on Drummond Island after the War of 1812, was destroyed by fire in 1817, and he moved here permanently after trading for a time at Flat Point, Bay of Islands. La Morandière raised crops and brought... -
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, 1829, 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... -
Arctic Watershed, The
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. -
Timiskaming Mission, The
In 1836, a Catholic mission was established directly across the lake at Fort Timiskaming, a Hudson's Bay Company post where, by 1842, a chapel had been completed. The mission was moved to this site in 1836 and a presbytery was constructed by the Oblates who had commenced missionary work in the region in 1844. A second presbytery was built here in 1867.The Grey Sisters of Ottawa, who had arrived the previous year, then established the... -
Kirkland Lake Gold Camp, The
The Larder Lake gold rush of 1906 was accompanied by discoveries of gold at Swastika and, in 1911, the first strike at Kirkland Lake was made by William H. Wright. The Tough-Oakes became the camp's first producing gold mine in 1912. During the peak years of the late 1930's the Lake Shore, Wright-Hargreaves, Teck-Hughes, Sylvanite, Kirkland Lake Gold, and Macassa mines along the "Main Break", and other properties in the vicinity, employed about 5,000 men... -
Great Fire of 1922, The
On October 4, 1922, scattered bush fires which had been burning for some days north of Haileybury were united by strong winds into a holocaust which spread over most of 18 townships and took an estimated 43 lives. Burning out of control between the Englchart and Cobalt areas, it destroyed the communities of North Cobalt, Charlton, Thornloe and Heaslip, while Englehart and New Liskeard were partly consumed. The thriving town of Haileybury was razed except... -
Arctic Watershed, The
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. -
Founding of Englehart
Englehart owes its beginnings to the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway (T. & N.O.), a colonization line designed by the provincial government to open agricultural lands of the Little Clay Belt to settlement and to provide access to the area's vast timber resources. In 1905 the railway stockpiled equipment and materials on the east bank of the Blanche (now Englehart) River, at mile 138, for the line's first major bridge. This drew entrepreneurs to provide... -
Kapuskasing - Garden City and Model Town
In 1921 the Kimberly-Clark and the Spruce Falls companies constructed a pulp mill in Kapuskasing that would employ many workers. To plan for Kapuskasing's anticipated growth, the provincial government commissioned the architectural landscape firm of Harries & Hall to create a town plan, which incorporated elements of the late 19th century Garden City and City Beautiful town planning movements. The first provincially-planned single resource town in Ontario, Kapuskasing's design focused on a healthy living environment... -
Timmins
Ojibway and Cree communities were among the early inhabitants of the region. They were drawn to the area's abundant natural resources, and participated in vast trading networks with other First Nations. Europeans arrived in the late 1600s and in the centuries that followed, local French, English and First Nations communities were largely reliant on the fur trade. In the early 1900s, the Ontario government promoted further settlement in the region, and infrastructure – such as... -
Anna Jameson 1794-1860
Born in Dublin, Ireland, and raised in London, this famous 19th century author, illustrator and social reformer joined her husband, Robert Jameson, Attorney General of Upper Canada, at Toronto in 1836. The following June, unescorted, Mrs. Jameson travelled to Port Talbot, Detroit, and Mackinaw. From there she journeyed by bateau to Sault Ste. Marie, descended the rapids, and attended an Indian Assembly at Manitoulin. She travelled on to Toronto by way of Georgian Bay and...