Map locating Depot Harbour and Parry Sound...Lynx Images, Scandal of Depot Harbour, Ghosts of the Bay, Main Page, Lighthouses, Shipwrecks, Great Lakes, Georgian Bay, Ghosts of the Bay, Enchanted Summers, North Channel & St. Mary's River, Muskoka, Ontario, Ghost Towns, Toronto, Mount Pleasant Cemetery
In Ottawa, J.R. Booth owned lumber mills and had interests in the railway, strategically piecing together rail access to the Atlantic ports for his mills. By 1883, Booth began to expand into the grain trade. All he needed was a Georgian Bay port and the men to run it. In 1891, Booth bought into the troubled Parry Sound Colonization Railway intending to connect it to his already thriving rail network. This would mean that all the cargo shipped into Parry Sound Harbour could be directly delivered to the Atlantic by rail. The benefits to Parry Sound would be immeasurable. Booth put out the word that he was looking to buy land for this railway, but the responses received enraged him. The Parry Sound landowners had asked top dollar for their land. Booth dissolved relations and left Parry Sound in a huff. He would show them how business was done.
It did not take him long to find a superior port to Parry Sound. About four miles (7 kms) south, on Parry Island, was Canada’s largest freshwater harbour with a flat back shore, just waiting for Booth to discover it - or had he discovered it already? Historians have strong evidence Booth never intended to do business in Parry Sound, he just used the early partnership to gain government subsidies. Booth announced brazenly in the local paper that he would be building his rail terminus on Parry Island. This was news to the Ojibwa who lived there and owned the land. But Booth knew something the Ojibwa did not -- the intricacies of the law that allowed for the appropriation of native land for rail purposes. In 1895, the Ojibwa of Parry Island were forced to sell their 314.5 acres (125.8 ha) for $9 an acre. Booth was in business and Parry Sound was not.
In 1896-97, Booth amalgamated his interests in the Parry Sound Colonization Railway with the Ottawa-Arnprior Railway to create the shortest route, via Montreal, to the Atlantic Ocean. Depot Harbour was in business. In 1899, Booth made the new Ottawa-Arnprior-Parry Sound line part of his Canada Atlantic Transit Company, which operated seven ships. In that year, he also bought up another 110 acres (44ha) of land for the Depot Harbour town site which would include 103 family homes, a three-storey, 110-room hotel, a large bunkhouse, a modern school, three churches, two stores, a post office, a butcher shop, and a barber shop. He also added all the services needed for Depot Harbour’s transshipping success: a railway station, water tower, and roundhouse, and coal dock, warehouses, two huge freight sheds, and two grain elevators each to hold a million tons of grain and a powerhouse to ensure Depot Harbour had its own supply of electricity.
During the boom years from 1910 to 1928, there was always something going on in Depot Harbour. Fifty to sixty ships would call at Depot Harbour each year, shipping over two million tons of flour, grain, feed, packaged freight, and manufactured goods to eastern and western ports. On any given day, the warehouses were full of spices and silks form the East, wool from Australia, and manufactured goods from Chicago for the Woolworth’s five and dime stores. Passenger trains from Ottawa arrived daily.
Depot Harbour’s inhabitants were as diverse as the goods flowing in and out. By 1911, there were 650 people living there from English, Irish, French, Italian, German and eleven other European backgrounds. Language barriers were overcome, and the town’s social life was harmonious and amicable. By 1926, the population had climbed to 1,600 with as many as 3,000 residents in the summer.
In 1904, Booth sold his railway to the Grand Trunk Railway which, in turn, was amalgamated in 1923 with the Canadian National Railway. This set the stage for Depot Harbour’s eventual downfall and its new reputation. No longer would it be the biggest port on the Bay, instead it would be the biggest ghost town.
Depot Harbour was hit by several damaging blows. When the CNR could not afford to mend a vital bridge, Depot Harbour lost its role as the Great Lakes port on the most direct route to the Atlantic. In addition, the Great Depression destroyed the grain trade and Depot Harbour’s massive elevators fell into disuse. With no jobs there was an exodus out of town.
Depot Harbour experienced one more small boom during the Second World War. One of Depot’s grain elevators was used to store cordite for the explosives factory at Nobel. The empty elevator caught fire. Flames rushed through, igniting the second elevator loaded with cordite. What happened next was a fireworks show talked about to this day. Some eye-witnesses said the flame was so bright you could read a newspaper at midnight in Parry Sound. Birds died flying into the firelight. The heat was so intense that steel melted and train tracks warped as if made of plastic. The dreams and hard work of the people who put Depot Harbour on the map were lost in those ferocious flames.
A coal company tried to operate but closed in 1951. Depot Harbour’s status as a ghost town was now confirmed. The CNR sold many of the buildings to happy cottagers, who carted them off in pieces for a mere $25. What was left after the scavenging was torn down or left to the elements. A few businesses tried to revitalize the harbour, stockpiling ore and manufacturing fertilizer, but none lasted.
In 1987, the Ojibwa Indian Band broke the CNR’s 99-year lease and regained control of Parry Island. They returned it to its original name, Wasauksing. The Ojibwa own all the land around Depot Harbour and permission must be obtained from the Band office before exploring the town.
If approaching by boat, the first thing you will see are the concrete docks and wharves where ships used to line up three-deep. To the north trees have now taken root in the remains of the roundhouse, and the concrete company’s vault stands empty. As you explore the considerable grid of streets, voices call out: neighbours talking over the fence, mothers shouting to their children, people greeting each other in dozens of languages. Or there is the familiar tapping of J.R. Booth’s cane on the sidewalk as he strolls through the town, surveying the fruits of his labour. The steps that once led up to one of the three churches are still there. Early twentieth-century artifacts lie scattered in dense grass and shrubs, and in the water, plenty of broken green Depression glass can be found.
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