Long before there were towns, roads, or even names for this place, the Earth split open here along the Temiskaming Rift. Fire rose from the fractures, mountains heaved against the sky, and glaciers a mile thick carved the land into the shape we know today. When the ice finally released its grip, the waters gathered — deep… cold…and patient.
Lake Temiskaming became the heart of this region, holding the stories of every era that followed. To the First Peoples who travelled its shores…the voyagers who crossed its waves… the settlers who worked its soil… the boomtowns that rose and fell…all of them left traces carried in the Water, the Stone, and the quiet spaces between.
From the beginning this land carried teachings…
wisdom shared through generations by the First Peoples of the Temiskaming Valley.
Truth…Respect…Love…Courage…Humility…Honesty…and Wisdom
These are the seven teachings to guide a life lived in balance with the land and all our relations.
The world was changing. In the south, men were hungry…for pelts… for prestige… for the wealth of the wild…for adventure. Long before surveys and borders, the lake became a highway. They came in boats of birch bark and were guided by the very people who knew the Lake’s every contour and mood… the Anishinaabe.
When new travellers arrived…fur traders…missionaries and the loud, laughing Voyageurs… they survived because the People of this place showed them the way.
Every route they followed,
Every rapid they crossed,
Every safe harbour they found…
Began with knowledge far older than any map.
The Voyageurs may have measured their lives in portages and beaver pelts, but even the toughest steersman felt a chill when the mist rolled off the cliffs at dusk. They learned quickly: you don’t own this water. You are a guest.
And sometimes if you look closely at the cracks in the rock or the shadows in the cedar…you realize you aren’t the only ones watching the trail.
Myth or truth? You be the judge.
There is a place where the Little People’s presence is loudest. And for good reason. It is a spectacular edifice called Devil’s Rock which long before… was known as Manidoo’s Stone. It’s rock face extends 300 feet above the water and nearly as far below, creating a powerful marriage of Lake and Stone.
To the First People of this land it was sacred grounds… a place of offerings…ceremony… meditation… and healing. A place where the spirit world merges with the living.
The imposing face which is etched into the rock has solemnly witnessed all that has ever passed on this Lake. The Stone… a sacred guardian… revered by all above… and all below.
When miners sought treasures deep within the rock base and caused a wound to be tunnelled into it’s depths…
It caused a stir…
As the North opened up other kinds of vessels took to the water. By the late 1800’s the “Deep Water’ became a highway to iron hulls…paddle wheels…and engines that shook the shores. Steamships carried settlers… mail…ore… freight…and hope across the lake. They carved their wakes through mist and moonlight, binding communities together.
This is the story of three great ships who once sailed these “Deep Waters”…
The Meteor, The Lady Minto and the ill fated Temiskaming
When the Lake could carry no more, the railway took up the journey. In 1902 the government sent the steel north looking for farmland. The Temiskaming and Northern Ontario line brought workers, settlers and new hopes into the region. The “Iron Road” didn’t just carry people… it carried a fever that would change the North forever!
Here is the story of the construction workers… the engineers…the heroes and all those behind the scenes who made the “Iron Road” a successful means of transportation to our Northern towns.
By the late eighteen hundreds, the Gillies Brothers were established lumbermen in the Ottawa Valley. As southern pine stands grew thin, they followed the timber frontier north toward Lake Temiskaming.
Along the Montreal River the Gillies Brothers built logging camps and a railway stop known a Gillies Depot. A working community grew there… loggers…railway men…families and a schoolhouse that stood for nearly 30 years. A place where a man’s worth was measured by the strength of his back and the speed of his boots on a rolling log.
Gillies Depot Line tells the story of that brief… hardworking chapter in our Northern history.
Up until the discovery of silver in the Cobalt Mining Camp, settlement in the area around the North end of Lake Temiskaming had been mainly due to farming and forestry. But that was about to change.
In 1903 the rail line was being built 4 miles south of Haileybury.
On an warm August day, two members of a crew looking for lumber for rail ties…James H. McKinley and Ernest J. Darragh, inadvertently discovered silver near the Mile 103 post …and the North changed overnight.
By 1905 a full scale silver rush was underway.
The rails brought people from around the world to seek their fortunes.
The silver rush carved a new chapter in the land and its people and the town of Cobalt came to life.
The wealth of Cobalt changed the world in many ways. It transformed Toronto into a financial centre and Canada into a world powerhouse in mining.
In the Autumn of 1922, the north had gone for more than two months without rain. Slash piles from the logging cutovers smouldered day and night.
The ground was tinder dry… the spruce tops brittle…and every homestead kept a bucket by the door…just in case.
On October 4th a storm front moved in from the west…
Not with rain…but with wind! Forty mile an hour gusts swept across Temiskaming, fanning dozens of small bush fires into one vast inferno.
From Haileybury to Charlton…farms… rail lines… and whole communities stood in it’s path. That day is still known as the Great Fire of ’22…a fire so fierce it turned noon to darkness…drove families into the lake for safety, and left thousands homeless by nightfall.
It seems that every story has a villain and so does our story this evening.
We will not be hearing from the survivors but from the very thing they fought.
Who better to tell the tale… than the fire itself.
When the smoke finally cleared, the ash lay six inches deep. They could have left. Most people would have. But the survivors looked at the land. In this valley the land becomes part of you… the fields, the clay, the steady pull of Lake Temiskaming.
And even when life leads us far away… the lake… the land…have a way of calling us back home.
This next song is the story of three generations of a farming family. The grandfather who first settled the land… the father who fought through its challenges and the son, who as a young man, couldn’t wait to leave.
But the story of this valley is not finished. The waters still rise with spring, the forests still breath, and the Stone still waits quietly watching.
Every generation leaves its mark…a road…a story…a song…
It is a living circle: of people…of seasons…of struggle…of renewal.
The Lake, the Land, the Stone…they gather all the voices…past and present holding all of it in its long memory and carries them forward.