INITIAL WOODLAND PERIOD

TRADERS AND POTTERS

From: The Archaeology of North Central Ontario : Prehistoric Cultures North of Superior 1979, Ministry of Culture, Tourisma nd Sport (name of ministry 2012)

Evidence for Prehistoric Exchange Networks in North Central Ontario.

Ceramics first appear in the North Central region of Ontario about 500 BC. The earliest vessels were small pottery jars manufactured by the coil method. They had conical bases and distinctive impressed decoration executed with a toothed or sinuous - edged implement.
These conical-shaped vessels are the identifying characteristic of the Laurel culture. The Laurel people practised a way of life similar to that of the Archaic people in the region: fishing, hunting, and collecting wild plants on the major waterways north of Superior.

There are two major theories concerning the origin of the Laurel culture in the area. One is that Laurel arose out  of an Archaic base, and a differed from it only in that pottery had been adopted. The other suggests that Laurel people moved into the area from the south and east, following the expansion of wild rice into the Upper Great Lakes area about 500 BC.

By the Initial Woodland Period, extensive exchange networks had been established which stretched from the eastern seaboard to the Rocky Mountains. The Laurel people appear to have participated actively in this network. Artifacts made from Lake Superior copper have been found on sites throughout eastern North America, while such exotic items as marine shell beads from the Atlantic coast, stone tools of Knife River chalcedony from North Dakota, and obsidian from Yellowstone Park, Wyoming, have been found on Laurel sites in the Lake Superior region. Long distance trade was facilitated by the extensive system of waterways linking Lake Superior with the east, west, north and south - the same transportation network which would be utilized by the fur traders over a thousand years later.

ARCHAIC PERIOD

DIVERSIFICATION OF SUBSISTENCE TECHNOLOGY

From: The Archaeology of North Central Ontario, Prehistoric Cultures North of Superior , 1979, Ont. Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Sport (name of current ministry 2012)

Warmer, drier climatic conditions and changes in the distribution of large game and plant communities beginning about 5000 BC stimulated a shift in subsistence orientation to exploitation of small game and plant resources. Corresponding changes in the artifact assemblage included a reduction in the size of projectile points and the appearance of a fishing technology.

Two Archaic cultures have been recognized in Northern Ontario. The people of the Shield Archaic culture appear to be descended from the Plano people, and were indigenous to the boreal forest zone, north of Lake Superior. To the west, in the Lake of the Woods - Quetico area, there is  evidence of a different culture more closely related to the Archaic cultures of the Plains. These Plains Archaic peoples appear to have entered the area in conjunction with an eastward movement of prairie-grasslands out of Manitoba and Minnesota.

Perhaps the most important development of the Archaic in the Lake Superior region was the appearance of a new industry: the production of tools from native copper found on the shores of Lake Superior. Although this represents some of the earliest metal-working in the world, the Archaic peoples of Lake Superior were not the earliest metallurgists int eh true sense of the word.  Their tools were manufactured by heating and hammering copper into shape, not by casting as was done in other parts of the world. There is evidence that copper tools were being traded widely across eastern North America at this early period.

THIS WILL CURL YOUR HAIR

"Getting your hair done was worse than anything." - A.M.

Hair curler

From interview with A.M. 2006:

"I don't remember when I got my first perm, but I remember being strung to the ceiling at the hairdresser's place. The hairdresser lived on the street further down. I don't remember what the cost was. Ellie put these curlers in and then she put a clamp on top of these rods and they were pretty heavy. Then she had this machine up there and she would pull it down with cords on it and she would attach the cords to the clamps and then she would turn on the power."

"Everyone would want a perm bad enough, that's all there was.  And then it would get hot on your head!  It was burning hot. She would then fan or blow on it...something to cool down where it was burning. You were under these for so long, I don't remember definitely. And then she would take off the clamps and actually you would have burns in the scalp but not deep ones but enough that they were there and they were sore."

"So that's how we got our perms."

"Ellie's was the first one with that machine in Nipigon.  If you wanted a perm that's what you went through."

Nipigon Inn

This is one of the oldest photos we have in our archive of The Nipigon Inn.



This is from a post card in Mr. Everette's Album.
The large building at the bottom right is The Nipigon Inn,
likely in the early 1960's. Note the hedge that runs along front street



Nipigon Inn, looking down Second Street.

The Nipigon Inn was a three storey hotel.
In later years it was reduced to a two storey hotel.

This is what it looked like 2011.
The beginning of December 2011 it was demolished. The last of the big hotels.



The Ovilio, The International and far right The Nipigon Inn.
All three were taken down in the past decade.



THE NIPIGON INN

The Nipigon Inn has been a landmrk on the main street for more years than anyone can remember. It is unclear in what year the hotel was constructed. With a large transient population of bush and railroad workers in the early days of Nipigon, the hotel business was lucrative and the tavern was hopping.

On July 1, 1954 the Aboriginal people were first permitted to purchase alcoholic beverages and drink them in licensed outlets.

B. Satten "A Historical Walk Through Nipigon", 2003

NOVA COLUMBIA

THE LITTLE CAR THAT DIDN'T.

This vehicle set out from Nova Scotia in an attempt to cross Canada.

The mystery remains where it got to after passing Port Arthur - Fort William.

Nipigon photographer E.C. Everett took photos when it arrived in Nipigon.. This is one taken in 1931.

nmp4140

Car shows the hubs of front and back wheels
 equiped to wind up the cable and lift the car up and forward
 from swampy ground. Photo is a fire survivor.
nmp1076

McMannus is on the far side. Chas. Nelson is at back.
Another damaged photo.
nmp 1075

nmp 5381
N974.300.4

In 2002 a gentleman stopped by where our girls were inventorying the Nipigon Museum artefacts that had survived the fire of 1990. He had seen historic photos in the Husky Station on Highway 11/17 just outside town.  There on the wall was a photo of the Nova Columbia and he tracked us down.  He had been researching it and he sent us a letter later...

..."A gentleman in Nakina found some plaques in an old railway dump which were stamped:

MCLAUGHLAN ALL CANADA TRAIL
Blazed By
McLaughlan-Buick 1930

"I have newspaper clippings of the car making its way from Cochrane, Hearst, Nakina, Lake Nipigon, arriving in Nipigon May 15, 1931...arrived in Port Arthur on May 16, 1931...this is ll the information that we have been able to acquire on this event."



Pulp pioneers

For the history of the Red Rock Ontario mill see post:
Pulp Pioneers of Red Rock

at;
http://justnaturallyspeakingtheblog.blospot.com/

Camp 51

For the history of Camp 51 in the Jellicoe area run by Tansley see:

1,000,000th Cord

http://justnaturallyspeakingtheblog.blogspot.com/