Before the year slips away, we should celebrate the centennial of Northern Ontario. Not of its existence of course, for its Canadian Shield rock has been here for a billion years. However, its political boundaries were only established in 1912.
After Confederation, Ontario did not extend much beyond the Great Lakes. But in 1870 the new Canada bought all the land draining into Hudson Bay for £300,000. That launched a battle over which provincial government ruled what.
In 1884, the eastern border of Northern Ontario and Quebec was set, a straight line bisecting Lake Timiskaming. This set off a series of events led by one Charles Farr. He had surveyed land around Hailebury, named after his school in England, and New Liskeard. This is not shield country but the Great Clay Belt. Cloaked in all the biases of his era, he lobbied Queen’s Park to settle the clay belt and set up a wall of English Protestants in the face of the French Catholics across the lake. His proposed building a railway to get settlers to his area. He also pushed a sensitive button by telling Toronto exporters they could have a sea port at Moosonee, thus ending their dependence on rival Montreal.
What would later be called the Ontario Northland Railway was completed in 1905. Mineral finds along this route set off the great mining boom in such centres as Cobalt, Kirkland Lake and Timmins. Mining proceeds flowed south along the railway and helped build up the Toronto Stock Exchange. Today, mining is the core of the exchange, which last year raised 90 per cent of new financing for mines around the world.
The western border with Manitoba was a battleground. Both Ontario and Manitoba claimed Rat Portage (now Kenora) and each appointed police to the town; these Keystone Kops ended up arresting each other. In 1878, the federal government of Liberal Alexander MacKenzie had the boundary arbitrated, but when Conservative John A. Macdonald returned to power later that year he refused to accept the line in an effort to thwart the Liberal premier of Ontario, Oliver Mowat. Macdonald tried to elicit help from the Conservative premier of Manitoba, who was lukewarm — in the heat of the debate, as described by historian P.B. Waite, he went fishing. The Crown land was federal, so his province would receive little benefit from acquiring the disputed territory. Who needed the quarrel?
The U.K. Privy Council upheld the arbitration ruling in 1884. So now the boundary ran north from Lake of the Woods to the Albany River.
In 1912, the northern borders of Ontario, Manitoba and Quebec were set by federal legislation. The western border of Ontario would run due north to the east side of Island Lake and then in a straight line to the intersection of the 89th meridian and Hudson Bay. This jog in the boundary would prevent Churchill from falling between two provinces.
Historian W.L. Morton thought the Ontario-Manitoba border flew in the face of both history and geography. He viewed the Lakehead as the natural outlet for western wheat and resources. But times change and today Thunder Bay is the centre of activity around the Ring of Fire mining boom. It would look strange indeed to have the centre of this Ontario boom in Manitoba.
This part of the country has produced many people who have changed our country. American-born C.D. Howe, who represented the riding of Port Arthur in Parliament for 22 years, industrialized the nation and was one of the most influential figures in Canadian history. Others include the great native artist Norval Morrisseau, Gov. Gen. David Johnston, singer Shania Twain, astronaut Roberta Bondar, and where would we line up for coffee had it not been for Tim Horton.
So, happy birthday Northern Ontario. The next 100 years will be even more dramatic with the new mining discoveries, the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, scientific breakthroughs and research projects at Lakehead University and the other northern schools.