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Chapter 9 Beyond Sudbury and Copper Cliff Forestry, Agriculture, Indian Reserves, and the Burwash Industrial Farm The economic activities mentioned in the previous chapter were not the only ones fostering a pattern of dispersed population settlement in the Sudbury area. Other influences came into play that reinforced this trend, such as the exploitation of raw materials associated with forestry, the rise of agriculture, the creation of two Indian reserves, and finally, the establishment of the Burwash Industrial Farm. Up to the First World War, lumbering remained significant. This was especially true for places such as Milnet, Wahnapitae, and many CPR railway stations and Valley settlements. In the Skead area, its impact remained significant even after the Second World War. The postglacial deposits found in the Valley and in pockets of the Precambrian Shield east, south, and west of Sudbury and Copper Cliff likewise gave rise to agricultural landscapes and rural enclaves that were mainly occupied by francophones or Finns. Outside of Sudbury proper, there existed two Indian reserves and a provincially run prison facility known as the Burwash Industrial Farm. Their peripheral locations notwithstanding, these outliers reinforced Sudbury’s position as the hub for the area, and contributed to the constellation trend associated with its hinterland. Forestry Forestry served to transition the Sudbury area from its reliance on the fur trade into a mining economy. According to Historian A.R.M. Lower, by the end of the 1800s the Sudbury area was well positioned to become a major centre of forest activity. Situated on the North Shore of Lake Huron with several large rivers draining into Georgian Bay, in 1870 this vast landscape contained more virgin pine than any other part of Canada.1 Although timber from the North Shore was shipped to the United States as early as 1864, the local 140 Beyond Sudbury and Copper Cliff forests remained undeveloped until the limitations resulting from isolation disappeared with the arrival of the CPR mainline, and the forests in the Ottawa Valley and northern Michigan had been “thinned out.” Important as well was the growing demand for lumber from Chicago and the American Midwest. It was for this reason that the commissioner of Crown Lands, acting on authority from the province, opened land north of Georgian Bay and the North Channel between Parry Sound and Sault Ste. Marie to the lumber industry, administering timber berths and timber licences. Despite these measures, the early export of lumber from the timber limits remained small; in 1880, for example, the commissioner of Crown Lands wrote that “no timber has been brought from the upper waters of the Wahnapitae [sic] and the only venture of taking timber down the French River was last winter.”2 Within a space of less than twenty years, however, the Georgian Bay watershed was swept over by American and Canadian lumbermen who made inroads into the area by setting up logging camps to reach the headwaters of distant rivers. The shift of lumbering into the Sudbury area was prompted by three considerations: first, the province considered it expedient to sell pine reserves before mining began; second, it was deemed advisable to dispose of the forests ravaged by a large fire in 1891; and third, the mining industry itself was proving to be a growing market for timber of all kinds. The effect on the local area was remarkable: “The rapidly expanding reconstruction era within the United States created a lumber market with which the American Lumber Industry was incapable of coping . Turning their hungry eyes northward to Canada’s virgin pine growth, the Americans moved in lock, stock and barrel. In a very short time, the Sudbury District was the scene of large-scale lumber operations never equalled in its history.”3 Production was initially geared to supply the construction materials the railways needed: red and white pine square timbers, waney timbers (planks with defective edges), and sawlogs. To satisfy these needs, small lumber mills were erected locally on Minnow Lake, the north shore of Lake Ramsey, Junction Creek, the Whitson River, and at Larchwood, Coniston, and Capreol.4 By the turn of the nineteenth century, square timber production had ended and there was an increase in the production of other products such as pulpwood and mining timbers. This resulted in a broadening of the species cut to include spruce, balsam, and jack pine. Sudbury’s position in the lumber industry was significant: it served as a major destination for those seeking employment in the adjoining forests, a function...

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