Bywater Call put on a great show to end the 2022-23 Tour De Fort season on Friday, May 12, 2023. Live music and Tour De Fort won’t going to be gone for long though. The next show hosted by Tour De Fort will be Skye Wallace and Goodnight Sunrise on […]
100 years, 100 stories
The History of the Rainy River District
The following pages are a testament to the history of Rainy River District. The articles appear as they did when originally published and have not been edited in any way. The articles, published in the Fort Frances Times and Rainy River Herald, describe how the area was developed including the gold rush around the turn of the century, the birth of the logging industry and how railways and highways opened the area to the rest of the country.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PHOTO ALBUM
THE GREAT GOLD RUSH
THE BIRTH OF THE LOGGING INDUSTRY
TRANSPORTATION —THE OPENING OF THE WEST
DEVELOPMENT
SETTLEMENT
MAJOR EVENTS —WAR, CRIME, DISASTERS, POLITICS
BIOGRAPHIES OF INTERESTING CITIZENS
Credits Feedback
This Digital Collection was produced under contract to the SchoolNet Digital Collections Program, Industry Canada.
– Ken Kellar photos
It was a sunny, warm and busy day in downtown Fort Frances as hundreds of children and their parents turned out for the Kiwanis Club’s annual Easter Egg-stravaganza event that took place from 11:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, April 8, 2023,and that saw excited youths crisscrossing downtown businesses […]
According to the Geographic Names Unit of the Surveyor General’s Office, Tait was named after Joseph Tait, MPP for Toronto Centre. Shenston was given the name of F. Shenston from a prominent Brantford family. Roseberry got the name of a British Statesman, Lord Roseberry. Barwick got its name from J. […]
Between the Ripples...Stories of Chapple
During the reign of the great Queen Victoria, settlers, mostly from “Old Ontario”, steamed up the “Queen of Rivers” from Lake of the Woods to the Chapple area. In order to settle Western Canada, the Dominion of Canada passed The Dominion Lands Act in 1883. This Act stated that any […]
Between the Ripples...Stories of Chapple
The requirements for organization as a municipality are written in F. Yeigh’s report: As soon as a township has 100 resident freeholders, a township council, consisting of reeve, deputy reeve and councilors, may be chosen to administer the affairs of the organized settlement. The community which was to become Chapple […]
Between the Ripples...Stories of Chapple
In the 1840’s, Nicol Finlayson wrote of seeing the Indians fishing at Manitou Rapids and described the forest along the river: … the forest on both banks consists of birch and hard wood instead of the eternal pine forests, which have been hitherto passed through. The settlers had to accept […]
Our Thanks The Development Team at the Fort Frances Times would like to thank the following people for their efforts: The staff at the Fort Frances Museum for their help in finding information and for the use of History of Fort Frances. Margaret Thompson, author of Rainy River. Our Town. […]
Between the Ripples...Stories of Chapple
More efficient than any of today’s communication method was the five rings of the telephone that meant every receiver in the community would be lifted. Five rings by the operator or by anyone in trouble signalled and emergency. One long ring meant someone was calling “Central” to connect them with […]
Between the Ripples...Stories of Chapple
Road Construction The Colonization Road, first called the River Road was the first road in Chapple. It was constructed to encourage “colonization” and followed the river bank through Barwick and Roseberry townships. Initially it was probably a path used by natives during the spring and fall when the river was […]
I am trying to understand what 100 years means. My sense of history and the understanding of the Fort Frances Times begins in the basement of the Times when it was located on Church Street. It is a memory of standing around a noisy folder, and helping my grandfather and […]
Fort Frances Times and Rainy Lake Herald
Uncork the champagne bottles–the Fort Frances Times turns 100 today! One is awestruck, looking back over the past century, by how much has been dutifully recorder on these very newspaper pages. It was the promise of gold that spawned a city, and this newspaper, so many years ago. But long […]
