Post on Thos Falls Logging history with photos can be read on
http://justnaturallyspeakingtheblog.blogspot.com/
"Been There Done That"
Tuesday, 16 August 2011
Monday, 15 August 2011
PRE-HISTORY AND THE START OF HISTORY
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| Copper tools. Part of the McCollum Collection. The discovery at Reflection Lake on Highway 11, north of Nipigon in the 1950's was unique in North America in that it contained stone and copper tools. Usually it was one or the other in these kinds of sites. |
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| A broken tip, a broken notch. Do you think anyone will admire our garbage in 7000 years? |
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| Copper, the new-comer, a mere 3,500 years ago. Used in decoration, and tools, and weapons. |
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| Lithics by the thousands . Scrapers, drills, knives ,(that will still cut paper), dart points (arrowheads), lance tips stretching back over 7000 years. |
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| The pottery sherds give us a 1200 year occupation of South Bay on Lake Nipigon. |
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| Fur Trade Exhibit |
BEADWORK
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| The beadwork of the Great Lakes region is a multitude of floral designs. Once you move north of Lake Nipigon the influence turns to more geometric decoration. The beads at the turn of the century (1900) were very tiny compared to the 1970's beads used by the Fort Francis beaders. The conservers in Ottawa found that each bead was knotted, so unravelling was a slow process. Lucky for us because some of our beadwork was partially lost in the 1990 museum fire, but their remnants could be cleaned as they were still secure. |
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| These are the 1970's style of beadwork. |
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| These are Lapland Reindeer slippers. These people used fur out in their creations. These can be seen in our Finnish Culture Cabinet. |
The Beardmore Relics
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| The Beardmore Relics in their display case opposite the Wildlife Exhibit. Currently the Museum blogger is trying to get new permission to write some of A.D. Tushingham's The Beardmore Relics Hoax or History in our Blog. We do have the whole article in our 1982 Souvenir edition newspaper. It was part of the condition when we received the replicas that the R.O.M story be told. |
Sunday, 14 August 2011
DIARY OF A MAD FISHERMAN
In 1887, Hiram Worcester Slack of St. Paul, Minnesota, came to the Nipigon River to fish and to observe the countryside. Thanks to his daughter, Julia Slack Nye, his record of the trip has been preserved and what follows are some excerpts from it.
Written by L.M. "Buzz" Lein 1981
July 24, 1887
Left Port Arthur at 12 and reach Nipigon Station, Red Rock P.O. at 3 or 4 by the time observed on this division of the C.P.R. We interview Mr. N. Flannagan who gave us a permit to fish in her Majesty's domain. Get two men, Louis Busha(?) and his son Michael with their canoe, and at 5 start on our journey. Cross Lake Ellen (likely Lake Helen) and go about a mile up the river where we pitch our tent.
July 25, 1887
Rained till 3 p.m. Breakfast was coffee and salt pork. Dinner was oatmeal cooked over an oil stove. At 4, reached Camp Alexander and the first portage.
One half hour later I landed a speckled trout 17 inches long.
July26, 1887
Breakfast at 5:30 a.m. Made short portage, went a short way on a creek, then made a three mile portage - the Long Portage.
Passed through Lake Emma - (edit LML , Slack not sure, actually he was on Jessie Lake) - several miles. Took a 19" long trout. We reached a narrow gorge where masses of rock rose 1000 feet. Split Rock portage came soon. Two or three miles further on we came to Island Portagew. Caught one big speckled trout. We stop for the night at the foot of Pine Portage.
July 27, 1887
Plan was to leave the tent standing and go to the first falls on the Nipigon River. Breakfasted on fish at 5:30 a.m. and started out before 7. On our right was the celebrated Cameron Pool. After a row of half an hour we came upon falls at our left of no great height, but the whole volume of the river pours through a gorge a few rods in width and at right angles to the channel below. Opposite is a vertical wall of rock.
From here, our course was so crooked that I cannot even now describe it. Shortly before noon we came in sight of the First Fall (LML he was at Virgin Falls).
The vertical fall is about 20 feet then a sharp descent for probably 300 feet, then spreading out in a broad basin about 80 rods width. Proceeded at once to fish. As the frying pan and some other important things had been forgotten, our meal was cooked in primitive fashion. We started down about 3 o'clock and reached camp at 8.
July 28, 1887
We went back with the men while they carried the canoe over. We left our camping grounds at 9 o'clock and soon passed Island Portage. On our way up at this point Louis gave me a rock rich in iron, but he wouldn't tell me where it came from. We stopped at a rocky point on Lake Maria for dinner.
We reached the Long Portage before 3 o'clock. Here we helped carry baggage for our tired men.
Put the boat in the creek float it down to the rapids and then run through them. After they are safely past, Louis trembles and says, "thank God for that!" We set up our tent on a sandy plateau. In the rapids there is good fishing.
July 29, 1887
The guides went away this morning at 8 with Mr. Ross. We fished.
July 30, 1887
We got to the falls about two miles above our camp. It rained hard. Expect Louis all the time. I feel generally miserable.
July 31, 1887
A heavy storm in the night - rain, thunder - lightning. W did not know until morning that Louis got up and burned "something the priest gave me" to protect us from the lightning. I arose at 6 and caught a 16 inch trout - a small one scarcely bigger than one of my phantom minnows. We went back to the falls upstream where I caught three trout with a total weight of about nine pounds.
After dinner we pack up and at 4 o'clock bid farewell to Camp Alexander. Reach Nipigon at 7. Louis pitches our tent near the station and the guides leave us after getting our supper. Paid for provisions $1.55 . I find there is no passenger train to Port Arthur on Tuesdays. After much trouble get on a freight train with our luggage. Reach Port Arthur at 5 o'clock and find the R.G. Stewart already there and to leave for her return trip at 8 o'clock this evening. We take dinner at the Northern Hotel.
August 1, 1887
First good sleep for weeks. Reach Duluth at 3:30 and leave on train at 9:25 for home.
Photos from Nipigon Museum Photo Archives, David Haig Collection and TBA
Written by L.M. "Buzz" Lein 1981
July 24, 1887
Left Port Arthur at 12 and reach Nipigon Station, Red Rock P.O. at 3 or 4 by the time observed on this division of the C.P.R. We interview Mr. N. Flannagan who gave us a permit to fish in her Majesty's domain. Get two men, Louis Busha(?) and his son Michael with their canoe, and at 5 start on our journey. Cross Lake Ellen (likely Lake Helen) and go about a mile up the river where we pitch our tent.
July 25, 1887
Rained till 3 p.m. Breakfast was coffee and salt pork. Dinner was oatmeal cooked over an oil stove. At 4, reached Camp Alexander and the first portage.
One half hour later I landed a speckled trout 17 inches long.
July26, 1887
Breakfast at 5:30 a.m. Made short portage, went a short way on a creek, then made a three mile portage - the Long Portage.
Passed through Lake Emma - (edit LML , Slack not sure, actually he was on Jessie Lake) - several miles. Took a 19" long trout. We reached a narrow gorge where masses of rock rose 1000 feet. Split Rock portage came soon. Two or three miles further on we came to Island Portagew. Caught one big speckled trout. We stop for the night at the foot of Pine Portage.
July 27, 1887
Plan was to leave the tent standing and go to the first falls on the Nipigon River. Breakfasted on fish at 5:30 a.m. and started out before 7. On our right was the celebrated Cameron Pool. After a row of half an hour we came upon falls at our left of no great height, but the whole volume of the river pours through a gorge a few rods in width and at right angles to the channel below. Opposite is a vertical wall of rock.
From here, our course was so crooked that I cannot even now describe it. Shortly before noon we came in sight of the First Fall (LML he was at Virgin Falls).
The vertical fall is about 20 feet then a sharp descent for probably 300 feet, then spreading out in a broad basin about 80 rods width. Proceeded at once to fish. As the frying pan and some other important things had been forgotten, our meal was cooked in primitive fashion. We started down about 3 o'clock and reached camp at 8.
July 28, 1887
We went back with the men while they carried the canoe over. We left our camping grounds at 9 o'clock and soon passed Island Portage. On our way up at this point Louis gave me a rock rich in iron, but he wouldn't tell me where it came from. We stopped at a rocky point on Lake Maria for dinner.
We reached the Long Portage before 3 o'clock. Here we helped carry baggage for our tired men.
Put the boat in the creek float it down to the rapids and then run through them. After they are safely past, Louis trembles and says, "thank God for that!" We set up our tent on a sandy plateau. In the rapids there is good fishing.
July 29, 1887
The guides went away this morning at 8 with Mr. Ross. We fished.
July 30, 1887
We got to the falls about two miles above our camp. It rained hard. Expect Louis all the time. I feel generally miserable.
July 31, 1887
A heavy storm in the night - rain, thunder - lightning. W did not know until morning that Louis got up and burned "something the priest gave me" to protect us from the lightning. I arose at 6 and caught a 16 inch trout - a small one scarcely bigger than one of my phantom minnows. We went back to the falls upstream where I caught three trout with a total weight of about nine pounds.
After dinner we pack up and at 4 o'clock bid farewell to Camp Alexander. Reach Nipigon at 7. Louis pitches our tent near the station and the guides leave us after getting our supper. Paid for provisions $1.55 . I find there is no passenger train to Port Arthur on Tuesdays. After much trouble get on a freight train with our luggage. Reach Port Arthur at 5 o'clock and find the R.G. Stewart already there and to leave for her return trip at 8 o'clock this evening. We take dinner at the Northern Hotel.
- paid for shaving $0.15
- paid for specimens $1.50
- paid for dinner $1.50
- paid for blackening of boots $0.10
- paid for laundry $0.25
- paid for salting fish $0.05
- paid for fare to Port Arthur $5.40
August 1, 1887
First good sleep for weeks. Reach Duluth at 3:30 and leave on train at 9:25 for home.
- Paid for fruit $0.16
- Paid for suppers $1.00
Photos from Nipigon Museum Photo Archives, David Haig Collection and TBA
Saturday, 13 August 2011
It Started on the Shores of Nipigon
Written by L.M."Buzz" Lein 1981
The Red Rock Trading Post of the Hudson's Bay Co had a very inauspicious beginning as a couple of rude log cabins erected on the shore of the Nipigon River, just above the high water where the present Nipigon Dock is located. It was meant a first merely as a look-out to see who was trying to get up into Lake Nipigon to cut into the fur business. In the 1850's and 1860's the Americans had well and truly cleaned out all and any furs around their part of Lake Superior. The free traders from the Duluth area patrolled the north shore of Lake Superior for any pelts they could get. Whoever was in the shacks at the Nipigon mud flats was supposed to do something probably if they saw any strange traders heading upstream. We do not know at this time what action was suggested.
Gradually, the couple of rough log cabins grew into several rough log cabins with a dock in front of the little cluster of huts. Peter McKeller was there in 1872 and sketched what he saw.
Over the years the little post was gradually enlarged and tidied up. The coming of fishing tourists about 1870 and the advent of surveyors and construction of the C.P. R. starting about 1883 made it imperative that the post look as if it belonged to someone.
As well as the fishing and construction, there was a great rumour in 1870-71 that Nipigon was going to be the Lake Superior terminal of the C.P. R., so they got to work and built the post up to what is evident in the copy. It is a copy of an unnamed and undated badly stained watercolour. This watercolour is not in Nipigon. If we gave it a date of 1883, we are not too far wrong. The flag flying from the bell tent in the lower left hand corner carries the initials C.P.S. for the Canadian Pacific Survey.
At the water's edge we see a fur press. To the left is a scallop with two masts - the half ton truck of the era. Note the piling along the dock and the storage building. There are piles of firewood neatly arranged.
( edit note 2011: part of this dock still exists in the current Nipigon Marina Dock or submerged close by. It was almost 350 feet long. Repairs are being planned maybe as soon as this fall. Some councillors have called for the removal of these historic pilings. The Curator is upset the real history may be destroyed.)
There is a pathway leading from a storage building at the waterfront back up the slope into the bush. This is the same road that leads from the C.N.R. to the water's edge in 1981. The buildings fronting on the road are the store (the largest) and dwellings for the hands who worked there.
Over to the left one sees a smokehouse where meat and fish were smoked - no refrigerators - and back of it to the left is the barn where there were probably cows, chickens and pigs.
Dead centre - the big fancy house - was known as the red house and it was where the factor or Chief Trader lived. In the fenced off field behind was the vegetable garden and hay field.
Of the two flags - Union Jacks - that are flying the one on the left might be the Hudson's Bay Co official flag with the HBCo on the lower right edge. The other one is a standard Union Jack. The Nipigon Museum actually has a genuine HBCo flag. It's so old that it is almost as thin as parchment. (Edit note 2011: HBCo flag lost in 1990 Museum fire.)
Since steamboat traffic was a regular occurrence after 1863, a look at the dock shows that steamers could come in - and did.
Life in this Red Rock Trading Post of the Hudson's Bay Co must have been pretty darn dull and uninteresting in the winter time as they were isolated except for the dog teams that ran the mail run to Fort William. In the summer what with tourists and railway it must have been a bustling place.
In the period about the time of this picture, the man in charge was Chief Trader Newton Flannagan. He retired from the Red Rock Trading Post to St. Paul, Minn. about 1892. We had the pleasure of touring his grandson about the location of this post. However, said grandson was about 70 years old in the early 1970"s : knew nothing about his roots and was hoping he'd find something here in Nipigon. He did.
The Red Rock Trading Post of the Hudson's Bay Co had a very inauspicious beginning as a couple of rude log cabins erected on the shore of the Nipigon River, just above the high water where the present Nipigon Dock is located. It was meant a first merely as a look-out to see who was trying to get up into Lake Nipigon to cut into the fur business. In the 1850's and 1860's the Americans had well and truly cleaned out all and any furs around their part of Lake Superior. The free traders from the Duluth area patrolled the north shore of Lake Superior for any pelts they could get. Whoever was in the shacks at the Nipigon mud flats was supposed to do something probably if they saw any strange traders heading upstream. We do not know at this time what action was suggested.
Gradually, the couple of rough log cabins grew into several rough log cabins with a dock in front of the little cluster of huts. Peter McKeller was there in 1872 and sketched what he saw.
Over the years the little post was gradually enlarged and tidied up. The coming of fishing tourists about 1870 and the advent of surveyors and construction of the C.P. R. starting about 1883 made it imperative that the post look as if it belonged to someone.
As well as the fishing and construction, there was a great rumour in 1870-71 that Nipigon was going to be the Lake Superior terminal of the C.P. R., so they got to work and built the post up to what is evident in the copy. It is a copy of an unnamed and undated badly stained watercolour. This watercolour is not in Nipigon. If we gave it a date of 1883, we are not too far wrong. The flag flying from the bell tent in the lower left hand corner carries the initials C.P.S. for the Canadian Pacific Survey.
At the water's edge we see a fur press. To the left is a scallop with two masts - the half ton truck of the era. Note the piling along the dock and the storage building. There are piles of firewood neatly arranged.
( edit note 2011: part of this dock still exists in the current Nipigon Marina Dock or submerged close by. It was almost 350 feet long. Repairs are being planned maybe as soon as this fall. Some councillors have called for the removal of these historic pilings. The Curator is upset the real history may be destroyed.)
There is a pathway leading from a storage building at the waterfront back up the slope into the bush. This is the same road that leads from the C.N.R. to the water's edge in 1981. The buildings fronting on the road are the store (the largest) and dwellings for the hands who worked there.
Over to the left one sees a smokehouse where meat and fish were smoked - no refrigerators - and back of it to the left is the barn where there were probably cows, chickens and pigs.
Dead centre - the big fancy house - was known as the red house and it was where the factor or Chief Trader lived. In the fenced off field behind was the vegetable garden and hay field.
Of the two flags - Union Jacks - that are flying the one on the left might be the Hudson's Bay Co official flag with the HBCo on the lower right edge. The other one is a standard Union Jack. The Nipigon Museum actually has a genuine HBCo flag. It's so old that it is almost as thin as parchment. (Edit note 2011: HBCo flag lost in 1990 Museum fire.)
Since steamboat traffic was a regular occurrence after 1863, a look at the dock shows that steamers could come in - and did.
In the period about the time of this picture, the man in charge was Chief Trader Newton Flannagan. He retired from the Red Rock Trading Post to St. Paul, Minn. about 1892. We had the pleasure of touring his grandson about the location of this post. However, said grandson was about 70 years old in the early 1970"s : knew nothing about his roots and was hoping he'd find something here in Nipigon. He did.
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