Algonquin Provincial Park-Neraton Land


In the 19th century, the logging industry harvested the large white pine and red pine trees, to produce lumber for domestic and American markets, as well as square timber for export to Great Britain. Homesteaders and farmers settled the area. The act to establish Algonquin Park was drawn up in 1892 by a five member Royal Commission made up of Alexander Kirkwood (the chairman and Commissioner of Crown Lands), James Dickson (Ontario Land Surveyor), Archibald Blue (director of mines), Robert Phipps (head of the Forestry Branch), and Aubrey White (Assistant Commissioner of Crown Lands), appointed to inquire into and report on the matter. Their report recommended that the park should be established in the territory lying near and enclosing the headwaters of five major rivers, those being: the Muskoka, Madawaska (including Opeongo), Amable du Fond, Petawawa and South rivers. 1893 Survey of Park LandsThe commissioners remarked in their report: "the experience of older countries had everywhere shown that the wholesale and indiscrimate slaughter of forests brings a host of evils in its train. Wide tracts are converted from fertile plains into arid desert, springs and streams are dried up, and the rainfall, instead of percolating gently through the forest floor and finding its way by easy stages by brook and river to the lower levels, now descends the valley in hurrying torrents, carrying before it tempestuous floods." Although much of the area within Algonquin had been under licence for some time, it was intended to make the Park an object lesson in forestry, the land being yet well timbered with pine and hardwoods. Under the act, only licences to cut pine would be issued for limits within the park. Although the commissioners had recommended that when the hardwood was mature, it too should be cut. An Act to establish "Algonquin National Park of Ontario" was passed by the Ontario Legislature, May 23, 1893(56 Vic.,c.8). However, the park has always been under the jurisdiction of the provincial government. No provincial parks existed until Algonquin, but there was a new movement to create national parks since Banff's establishment in 1885. The name was changed to Algonquin Provincial Park in 1913. The boundaries of the Park included 18 townships within the District of Nipissing, covering an area of 1,466 square miles (3797 km²) of which 10% was under water. The tract of land was to be set apart, as a public park, health resort and pleasure ground for the benefit, advantage and enjoyment of all the people of the province. The year following the park's creation saw the portions of six new townships added to the existing park's boundaries (Paxton, McCroney, Finlayson, Butt, Ballantyne, and Boyd). The first four were immediately put up for auction that same year. The overall production of the lumber companies operating in the park at the time increased from two hundred and eighty-eight million board feet in 1886 to three hundred and forty-three million board feet in 1896. A staff of rangers was placed in it, the game protected, and the forest fires kept out. By 1910 Algonquin was alive with game of all kinds, deer and beaver being numerous. Thousands of people had visited the great pleasure resort and it was said to be undeniably one of the most beautiful natural parks in the Dominion, if not on this continent." All this had entailed a large expenditure by the government, which was recovered chiefly through the maintenance of timber licences. There was no fee for camping permits, though a nominal charge was introduced for fishing and guides' licences when "An Act to establish the Algonquin National Park of Ontario" was again passed by the legislature, March 19, 1910. This new legislation included the original area as well as portions of ten townships annexed into the park since 1893, and allowed for further expansion by the addition of adjacent townships, should it become necessary.


	Algonquin Provincial Park is a provincial park located between Georgian Bay and the Ottawa River in central Ontario. It is the first provincial park in Canada, established in 1893, and therefore the oldest in Ontario.

Algonquin Provincial Park is a provincial park located between Georgian Bay and the Ottawa River in central Ontario. It is the first provincial park in Canada, established in 1893, and therefore the oldest in Ontario. covering about 7,725 square kilometres. Its size, combined with its relative proximity to the major urban centres of Toronto and Ottawa make it one of the most popular parks in the province. Highway 60 runs through the south of the park, while the Trans-Canada Highway bypasses it to the north. Over 2400 lakes and 1200 kilometres of streams and rivers are located within the park, including Canoe Lake and the Petawawa, Nipissing, Amable du Fond, Madawaska, and Tim rivers. These were formed by the retreat of the glaciers during the last ice age. Algonquin Park was named a national historic site in 1992 in recognition of several heritage values, including: its role in the development of park management; pioneering visitor interpretation programs later adopted by national and provincial parks across the country; its role in inspiring artists, which in turn gave Canadians a greater sense of their country; and historic structures such as lodges, hotels, cottages, camps, entrance gates, a railroad station, and administration and museum buildings. The park is in an area where there is a transition between northern coniferous forest and southern deciduous forest. Because of this unique mixture of forest types, the park contains thousands of species of plants and animals including moose, beaver, black bear, raccoon, porcupine, red squirrel, eastern gray squirrel, eastern chipmunks, mink, marten, otter, fisher, lynx, skunk, meadow vole, eastern red wolf, white tailed deer, lake trout, brook trout, walleye (yellow pickerel), smallmouth bass, fresh water ling, whitefish, rock bass, yellow perch, pumpkinseed sunfish, northern pike, muskellunge, freshwater sculpin, maple, and spruce, and is an important site for wildlife research.


Construction of the Ottawa, Arnprior and Parry Sound Railway (O. A. & P. S.), through the Park in 1896, provided the first easy access to the area. While the park’s purpose was to control settlement within its boundaries, the families of railway workers as well as those of the lumbermen took up residence in the park. The village of Mowat on the west side of Canoe Lake was first established in 1893, as a logging camp for the Gilmour Lumber Company. From there, logs were driven down the Oxtounge River towards Lake of Bays and eventually on to Trenton. In the same year park headquarters was established near the logging camp. The arrival of the railway had provided easy access for the lumbermen as well. The Gilmour firm decided to put up a sawmill closer to their source of timber. By 1897 the village of Mowat had grown to 500 residents and there was eighteen km of railway siding. The same year saw the official opening of the railway between Ottawa and Depot Harbour. Park headquarters was also relocated in 1897 from Mowat, to a point of land on the north shore of Cache Lake, adjacent to the railway. The O. A. & P. S. put up a station there, it named Algonquin Park. The railway, taken over by the Canada Atlantic Railway in 1899, was in turn sold to the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) in 1905. In 1898 George W. Bartlett was appointed as the second superintendent of Algonquin Park, replacing the late Peter Thompson. Placed under the direction of the Premier of Ontario, to make the park self-sufficient, Bartlett worked to make the park more attractive to tourists by encouraging short-term leases for cottages, lodges and camps. Changes came about in 1908, when Hotel Algonquin was opened at Joe Lake. The Grand Trunk Railway opened its first hotel, the Highland Inn, near Park Headquarters. Built on a hill behind Algonquin Park station, the two-storey year-round resort was an immediate success. Soon other guest lodges were established in the park. To the west side of Highland Inn, land was cleared and raised wooden platforms erected, on which tents (supplied by the hotel), were put up to meet the requirements the rapidly growing tourist trade. At the village of Mowat, abandoned by Gilmour Lumber Co. in 1900, the mill’s former boarding house became Mowat Lodge in 1913. The Highland Inn was enlarged, as well as new camps built. Nominigan Camp, consisting of a main lodge with six cabins of log construction, was established on Smoke Lake and Camp Minnesing on Burnt Island Lake was created as a wilderness lodge. Both, only open in July and August, were built by the GTR as affiliates of the Highland Inn. A second railway, the Canadian Northern (CNoR) was built across the northern portion of the park, opening in 1915, both lines later became part of Canadian National Railways.


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