Kitigan

At first I thought that there wasn’t much in Kitigan other than a rail crossing and two houses, one of which is always for sale.

Since then I’ve been reliably informed that Kitigan is much more than that. I guess it’s always been out of my own haste that I missed it.

Not only does the town make up more than one or two houses, but at one time it was larger than Kapuskasing!

Kitigan was an active point for loading pulp wood. A resident informed me by email that the hamlet was originally named Poquetteville when it was founded as a railway whistlestop and section station. Today, 30 families make Kitigan their home. Located eight kilometres east of Kapuskasing, Kitigan is an Aboriginal word meaning garden or open fields.

Thanks to Dutch for the Kitigan info. If you have more, please email me. My address is info (at) highway11 (dot) ca

Kapuskasing

Kapuskaing, Cold Weather Test Centre, GM, Highway 11 Ontario

Nothing says “welcome, why don’t you stay a while?” like seeing the Cold Weather test centre from your car window

Which Highway 11 town has 9000 people, more than 50 shops and services and was the hometown of the director of movies like Terminator, Aliens, True Lies, Titanic and Avatar?

Yep, Kapuskasing is kindofabigdeal in Highway 11 terms.

Kap has some neat sites.  The old Ontario Northland train station has been recently fixed up and has a little area for art exhibitions from the area.  There’s an old locomotive adjacent to the station that houses train memorabilia and neat facts about the CNR’s history.

Highway 11 Ontario, Kapuskasing, bear

Kap’s entry into the “some big weird thing” – a bear

Originally named Macpherson, the ‘model town of the North’ was built around the pulp mill that originally supplied paper to the New York Times.  When they built the mill, they decided to build a company town, and since it was a company town they planned it as the ‘model town of the north’ complete with planned parks (quite nice), its own power supply (which used to serve the town and mill exclusively), and an English-style traffic circle, which residents and visitors alike find confusing to this day.

MOdel Town of the North, Kapuskasing's roundabout

You know roundabouts are confusing when they are a pain even in a town this small

With about 9000 people, Kapuskasing is the largest town on Highway 11 between Kirkland Lake and Thunder Bay.  It’s even has its own spot on the North American professional lumberjackery circuit.  Every July the Kapuskasing Lumberjack Festival is broadcast live on television across Canada, and maybe even into the States. (Heck, Canada doesn’t even have a soccer league, but it has a lumberjack circuit?  And is sustainable with stops in towns like Kap?  Who would have guessed it…)

POWs

Kapuskasing POW memorial, Highway 11I was surprised to find, by accident, two little memorials just west of Kap.  There’s one for Ukrainian-Canadian detainees tha

t were interred near Kap during the First World War (the photo of the guy with the hat.)  Further in off the highway there’s one for German/Austrian/Turkish Prisoners Of War (the photo with the little crosses) that died while being imprisoned.

I found out from some locals at the site that during the First World War Kap was the site of a POW camp.  It was decided that

Kapuskasing POW camp memorial, Highway 11 Ontario

Kapuskasing POW camp memorial

Kapuskasing was perfect because at the time the only way in and out of town, at that time, was by train.  In other words, everyone detained there was stuck – there was no way to escape and nowhere to go if you did.  They used their labour to clear land for Kapuskasing’s experimental farm, which is right beside the 24 graves of the POWs.

In addition, Paul emailed me to tell me about Kapuskasing’s former life as a station on the ONR rail line. Every time a train derailed, the local foreman of the track maintenance crew at Kapuskasing was required to file a report with the head office of ONR in Toronto. His reports were apparently quite lengthy and detailed. After receiving many of these “eloquent” and “descriptive” reports, about train derailments the foreman (named Flanigan) was advised by the head office people to write reports that weren’t so lengthy. So, after the next derailment, the following telegram was received in the head office, as follows:

Re: ONR train derailment at Kapuskasing:
”Off again – on again – gone again” (Signed) FLANIGAN.

Farm near Kapuskasing. Highway 11

Still farm country this far north

Kapuskasing Today

Like all the francophone towns (it’s about 30/70 anglo/franco) of the north, Kapuskasing is really quite nice.  Although a James Bay tourism brochure bogusly claims that Kap is a town of “street dances” (who wrote that thing?), there is a fair amount to do for a city of its size.

Kapuskasing train station

Kap’s train station is pretty magnifique, with a museum and gallery

There is a farmer’s market in the summer.  If you can make it past the downtown traffic circle in the direction of your desire, you’ll find a really nice lakefront park and some good walking paths.

Kap has a bunch of services that are too long to go into detail here.  What’s important is that there is a Tim Horton’s.  There’s a McDonald’s too.  There are some honest-to-goodness northern Ontario Chinese food restaurants.  There is a Walmart but no Giant Tiger.  Apparently Kapuskasing also has the most productive Casey’s restaurant in all of Ontario.  Take that, Front and University (the downtown Toronto location.)

Pub Max, right on Highway 11, also has good food, especially the chicken salad sandwich.  There are two touristy stores on Highway 11 in Kap, namely Marbleworks and the Moonbeam Country Store.

Agrium Mine, Kapuskasing

Aerial view of a mine, near Kapuskasing

Reesor

Reesor is the site of one of northern Ontario’s many former agricultural colonies – in this case, one founded by Mennonites.

Thomas Reesor, an Old Order Mennonite Minister from Markham, Ontario who was employed by the railway, helped settle a number of Russian Memnonite refugees in Northern Ontario. In July 1924, many families decided to travel north and establish a settlement in northern Ontario on land offered by the Canadian Government. The group, accompanied by Thomas Reesor, made the train journey north to their new settlement in the wilderness west of Kapuskasing. The settlement was officially named “Reesor” in recognition of Thomas Reesor, it’s benefactor and founder.
The Reesor United Mennonite congregation began services about 1926, and formally organized in May 1927. Jacob H. Janzen is considered the founding leader of the group.

The settlement was situated along the Trans-Canada highway west of Cochrane, Ontario. It was organized in a traditional Russian Mennonite manne. The settlement initially prospered, reaching a membership of 75 in 1932, but declined rapidly during the Depression. The congregation dissolved on January 5, 1948.

In 2007, the hardships faced by the colonists at Reesor were made into a play, named Reesor, that featured at Fringe Festivals across Canada.

Rosslyn Village

We’ll get to Rosslyn Village’s agricultural background, it’s big weird things and its woodpile in a minute.

But what’s truly notable to someone blogging the world’s longest street is that Rosslyn Village is the first place that I almost locked my keys in the car.  (Yet.)

Having driven from Timmins to Thunder Bay and visiting each and every possible thing in between, I thought I had perfected the art of pulling a u-turn, dashing from the car, snapping a photo, and jumping back in.  I guess I was getting cocky.  Rosslyn was the first instance where I contemplated leaving my keys in the ignition.

After having paid homage to the cow-on-a-stick, I heard a creak.  Found at the old Canada feed station site on Highway 11, the white cow peers expressionless across the highway at a height of about 30 feet.

I paid no attention.  So I took some photos of the two big weird wooden moose hunter figures.  The wooden ‘statues’ of brothers Mike and André Allen stand against Highway 11.  Being on someone’s private property I didn’t venture further, so their meaning is thus unknown to me.  (Maybe they are northern Ontario’s version of a nutcracker?)

Rosslyn Village HuntersI had just finished taking a photo of André when I heard it.  A light thud.  A plasticky thud.  It was unmistakeable.  My car was a tiny city car.  It had the heft of a Pringles container.  That sounds couldn’t be anything else.

That was the sound of the wind closing the driver’s side door!

I returned to my car to find my door locked shut thanks to Thunder Bay’s crazy winds.  Relievingly, the keys were in my pocket.

Now, that might not sound like much.  But when you’re 12 hours from where you’ve been staying, and likely 24 hours from home, and your wallet is in the car, and your only other clothes are 65 km back, and off the main road to boot, that’s freakin’ scary.

Rosslyn Village seems to be the concentration of what is a tiny little farm belt just west of Thunder Bay.  With 6000 people (combined with Kakabeka Falls), and corn and hay and dairy operations, the area is reminiscent of the towns of the Temiskaming claybelt (just replace Earlton’s giant buffalo with a miniature cow-on-a stick, of course.)  And of course, Rosslyn Village wouldn’t be northern Ontario without a woodpile, which is visible on the south side of the highway.

The town of Rosslyn Village itself is actually a few kilometres off Highway 11, and considering I had driven more than a 1000 kilometres in the past two days I decided that I’d had enough detours for the time being and continued back to Thunder Bay.

I shoulda made a website on woodpiles of northern Ontario...

Rosslyn Village’s woodpile, west of Thunder Bay.  I shoulda made a website on woodpiles of northern Ontario…

Devlin / La Vallee

Devlin is two towns west of Fort Frances on Highway 11.  It seems pretty small.  I’ve found a few lodges online with Devlin addresses (one even listed as being in ‘North Devlin’) but otherwise I haven’t found much else.

La Vallee is on Highway 11 just west of Fort Frances.

La Vallee might have a francophone community, but I can’t confirm that.  I assume that it is something of a bedroom community for those who find the hustle and bustle of Fort Frances a little overwhelming.  The town celebrated its centennial in 2004.

This might be a farmhouse in La Vallee, Ontario.  Or it might be a house somewhere else.

This might be a farmhouse in La Vallee, Ontario. Or it might be a house somewhere else.

I couldn’t find much else on the internet about La Vallee.  There is a wikipedia stub on the town but for whatever reason it’s written in Polish.  The town has a school, an outdoor rink, a community centre, a daycare, a baseball diamond, a couple of churches, and a

post office.  I think there are two cemeteries somewhere around town as well.  In the summer the town hosts two bass fishing derbies and on mother’s day there is a local fish fry.

One interesting thing which appears to be in town is Mud Lake, an old western-style faux-village built by a local couple.

La Vallee and Devlin Ontario share a municipal office, on Highway 11

La Vallee municipal office in Devlin. (Credit: User P199 at Wiki Commons.)

Emo

Emo. So many possibilities.

The home of the 16th century Villa Emo?

The inspiration behind whiny, over-emotional, largely pre-teen rock?

The humble beginnings of an Irish oil company?

The birthplace of comedian Emo Philips?

Alas, Emo, Ontario is none of the above.  However, Emo is a town of about 1000 on Highway 11 midway between Fort Frances and Rainy River. A small agricultural town, Emo may be reminiscent of many of the small farming communities that dot southern and eastern Ontario, making it unique for something this far north.

Emo, Ontario, Highway 11, highway11.ca

What is this, Temiskaming? Emo’s main drag is cute cute cute. (Photo: User P199 at Wiki Commons.)

Like most of Canada, Emo was settled by people looking for free land and eventually became a little outpost on the Rainy River in 1889.

It soon became the centre of the agricultural industry in northwestern Ontario, and today is home to the Emo Agricultural Research Station.  The research farm began as a crop check in Pinewood in 1985, but moved to Emo in 1990 as they outgrew their surroundings.  Today the farm does research on oilseeds, forages, and cereals.  You can visit on pasture nights held in early June and late September, as well as during their annual open house in late July.  There is also a farm settlers’ museum run by the local Women’s Institute. The fact that Emo has a local Women’s Institute just screams “rural farming community” – I love it.

Emo provides good fishing opportunities due to the Clearwater/Pipestone Lakes found just north of the town.  There is stock car racing at the Emo Speedway.  Emo is also home to the Norlund Chapel (pictured), which ranks as one of the smallest usable churches in North America – it can only hold 8 people at a time.

Emo one-upped Barwick's tiny lighthouse with their own tiny chapel.

Emo one-upped Barwick‘s tiny lighthouse with their own tiny Norlund Chapel.

There are some places to stay in Emo, but since I’ve never been there, I can’t give any informed opinions.  I found listings on the internet for True North Outposts and Cabins, Little Moose Lodge, and Pipestone Lodge.  There is also a hardware store, variety stores, a food and jam shop, and a little grocer in town.

Other Emo events include spring fever days in April, the annual Emo Walleye Classic in May, and a fall fair the third week in August.  There are events held by the snowmobile club in the winter as well.

Emo municipal office, Ontario Highway 11 highway11.ca

We’ll end this profile of Emo with the obligatory shot of the municipal office. (Photo: User P199 at Wiki Commons.)

 

Stratton

Stratton is the seat of Morley Township and is two towns east of Rainy River.

RR-14-Stratton-LogoThe Township of Morley has the coolest city logo I think I’ve seen while compiling this site (see left).  It looks like it was drawn in Microsoft Paint (much like this website), and features a sun, some waves, a maple leaf, what I think is a lunchpail (oops! it’s a silo!), and a curling rock.  If this isn’t the logo of a Canadian retirement town, then what is?

East of town is the Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung Historical Centre (imagine having to spell that website address over the phone!).  Located by the Manitou Mounds, it’s an ancient First Nations burial site that’s been commemorated with a historical centre.

There’s the annual curling bonspiel in late February.  And there’s another one in mid-March.  And another one in late-March. And another one for truckers in April.  There’s a fishing derby in July, and then another curling bonspiel in December.

The area was first settled in the 1870s when settlers first travelled to Rat Portage (I bet Kenora sure is happy about changing their name from Rat Portage…) and then travelled by steamboat through Lake of the Woods.  Fires wiped out the early town, but things were rebuilt and in 1903 Stratton became the seat of the township. Today, Stratton is a bedroom community for Fort Frances and an agricultural area, with the only cattle auction/sales centre in north-western Ontario.

Add to this page by emailing me at info (at) highway11 (dot) ca and make Stratton come alive (ok not really.)

Stratton, Ontario, northwest on Highway 11 highway11.ca

(Photo: User P199 at Wiki Commons.)

RR-14-Stratton-Launch