|
When the ice-age receded from our Precambrian
Shield some 16,000 years previous, it left behind a landscape of
massive limestone canyons, rolling hills and deep valleys--the
Ottawa Valley carved by rivers.
The Ottawa River originates deep within a
canyon-like valley at Temiskaming in northern Ontario, levelling out
along relatively shallow shores from Deep River through to Ottawa,
as it flows to its mouth at the St. Lawrence.
Flowing from the aptly-named Source Lake in
Algonquin Provincial Park, the Madawaska River courses through the
Madawaska Valley to a confluence with the Ottawa at Arnprior.
At places it resembles one long waterfall crashing through rock-wall
gorges, with a drop of 224m from source to mouth.
The Bonnechere River descends from an elevation
of over 300m above sea level in Algonquin Park, through a distance
of 160km to its confluence with the Ottawa near Castleford.
The waters of Algonquin Park drain into a deep
channel which bisects the region diagonally. At its height,
the flow through this canyon was 1,000 times that of Niagra Falls
today, cutting a deeper channel each year and creating the Barron
River Canyon.
Although archaeological discoveries indicate that
man has travelled these rivers for over 5,000 years, it was the
Native Indians who first settled this land. Later the
voyageurs of the fur trade, then the lumbermen with their timber,
plied the mighty waters. As settlements sprung up along their
shores, the rivers were often the most practical travel route
throughout the Valley. But these water routes were not
unimpeded: waterfalls and white-water presented a constant
challenge.
"There is scarcely a
portage, or cleared point, jutting out into the river where you do
not meet with wooden crosses, on which are rudely carved the
initials of some unfortunate victim of the restless waters." C.
Keefer, Civil Engineer.
 Necessity
being the mother of invention, the Algonquin natives developed the
birch bark canoe -- buoyant, relatively lightweight and extremely
durable. Later, with the dawn of the industrial age, came the
Cockburn Pointer Boat. Designed by Pembroke native John
Cockburn, and built thereafter by generations of his family, this
craft was the workhorse used to establish the Arctic Dew Line and
develop riverways and ports across Canada.
By the late 1800s, two railroads were built to
link communities throughout the Valley. Lumberman J. R. Booth
was the driving force behind the Arnprior and Parry Sound Railway --
a road of steel stretching from the nation's capital at Ottawa
through the wilds of Algonquin park and on to Georgian Bay.
The Kingston and Pembroke Railway was built to transport natural
resources from our wilderness forests to Lake Ontario. (J. R. Booth
to the right standing beside a train load of squared timber.)
Of the many train stations that were built at the
time, only the one at Barry's Bay has been faithfully restored and
today serves the public as an Ottawa Valley Visitor Information
Centre. Across the street the original wooden water tower
stands as a landmark, and to the west, a turn-of-the-century
lumbermen's hotel still welcomes travelling families
year-round. Booth also built a roundhouse at Madawaska, where
the coal-fired engines were maintained and rerouted. Until
recently the remains of this structure stood along the shores of the
Madawaska River -- much like an old Roman ruin, complete with
imposing architecture and arched doorways.
Before roads, our waterways brought people and
their cargo into the wilderness of the Ottawa Valley. By the
1850s, as sawmills and settlements opened up the interior a series of colonization roads
were developed throughout central Ontario. New settlers and immigrants were
lured by land grants, but the challenge proved too difficult -- the
land was unforgiving. The giant virgin pine forest was
harvested, the ever-hopeful pioneers moved on, and forests
eventually reclaimed the primitive homesteads. Today,
reminders of this pioneering spirit still exist along the grid of
stone and rail fences, reflected in the broken panes of weathered
farm house windows and the aged tombstones in century-old
graveyards.
The Opeongo Line, as it is now known, began at
Farrell's Landing near Castleford on the Ottawa River -- linking
several wilderness routs along the way to an unceremonious end north
of the village of Barry's Bay.
"The Provincial Government have recently
opened out Three Great Lines of Road, now in course of
completion," said the advertisements of the 1850s.
"These roads, as advertised by the Agents of the Government
appointed to the respective localities to afford information to the
Settler, are known as The Ottawa and Opeongo Road, The Addington
Road and the The Hastings Road." Thus began the Valley's
Opeongo Line as it is often referred to today, so well known to
early inhabitants but only recently rediscovered as more and more
tourists come to see its many log buildings. (Many sections of the
Opeongo Line were "crosswayed" or
"corduroyed". Logs laid across soft sections of road
resembled surface of corduray cloth.)
"sudden vistas of silver
lakes and streams gleaming in the blue folds of the hills where
eagles still wheel above the crags and the wolves track the deer to
watering haunts and the loon calls for wind or rain at
twilight" Harry J. Walker Leading Historian of the Valley
Today's visitor can travel this route in ease and
comfort far removed from that of settlement times. Along the
Line, many of the original log barns are still filled each summer
with hay and grain harvested from the small fields. The
remnants of the great hardwood forest still cloak the hills and
stand cheek by jowl with areas of cultivated land separated by
fences of stone. And while many of the once-bustling
communities are now relative ghost towns, the spirit of adventure
that attracted our pioneers remains.
The County of Renfrew was formed on June 8, 1861
by an Act of Legislature of the Province entitled "An
Act to provide for the separation of the County of Renfrew from the
County of Lanark". |
History
