Ottawa. Photo © National Gallery of Canada.
Under the direction of Frederick Cumberland,[19] the NRC emphasized local traffic, much of which was generated by the growing popularity of the Georgian Bay and Muskoka regions as summer resorts for Torontonians. As early as 1874, the Northern began to promote the highlands of Ontario as far north as Lake Nipissing as a sportsman’s paradise. An article in the new American sports magazine, Forest and Stream, noted that this region was unknown in the United States, despite it being “the most accessible, the cheapest, and most prolific in genuine sport, of any we have yet had occasion to visit or refer to.” The lakes and rivers of this area, the article continued:
… abound in three pound brook trout, salmon trout, black bass, and pickerel, [and] some of these localities [are] almost virgin in their primitive wilderness, and yet nearly all [are] accessible by railroad and steamboat, in forty-eight hours from New York, via Toronto and the Northern railroad of Canada. Chief among them are lakes Simcoe, Couchiching, Muskoka, Rosseau, Joseph, Nipissing ... and the Muskoka and Magnetewan rivers.[20]
Alexander Cockburn’s Muskoka and Nipissing Navigation Company operated steamships on the Muskoka Lakes that connected to the Northern’s railway line at Gravenhurst. The furthest point reached by the steamers was Rosseau. The Rosseau–Nipissing Road extended from Rosseau to the south shore of Lake Nipissing. When the Northern issued its first guide to this area in 1875, it listed all of the points that could be reached by steamboat or road, starting from its rail line, giving short descriptions of each. Comonda (sic) and Nipissing, settlements that barely existed at the time, were therefore included.[21] In 1886, Barlow Cumberland, son of the general manager of the NRC and founding partner and vice president of the Niagara Navigation Company, published a much more detailed guide of this area, titled Northern Lakes. In it he advertised the Muskokas and beyond as the “new district for sportsmen and canoeists.”[22]
Map 2. The Nipissing Passageway represented a considerable challenge to railway construction. After investigation, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) chose a route to the north of Lake Nipissing, thereby providing the impetus for the growth of a town at North Bay. The Northern Railway of Canada connected the main CPR line at Nipissing Junction with Toronto. This line was later purchased by the Grand Trunk Railway. A branch of the CPR opened the Temiskaming area to settlement prior to 1900, but much of northern Ontario remained difficult to reach. Competition and optimism led to several more rail lines being constructed in the early twentieth century. The construction of the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario from North Bay cemented its role as the “gateway to the north.” When both the CPR and the Canadian Northern Railway built lines through the French River District in 1908, that area could be reached directly, bypassing North Bay. Canadian Northern and Grand Trunk lines were later assimilated into the Canadian National (CNR) system.
The CPR, as Canada’s first transcontinental railway, and the first Canadian railway to provide access to the Canadian Rockies, focused its early publicity material on the west, with information on the prairies aimed at immigrants and advertising on the Canadian Rockies and Banff, Canada’s first national park, aimed at elite travellers. It continued to promote summer excursions to established destinations such as Montreal and Quebec City in the east. Its guides were directed toward American tourists as well as Canadians. In these early guides, the Lake Nipissing area received only a passing mention. In Summer Tours,[23] for example, Callander was noted in passing as a destination to which tourist tickets were issued for access to Lake Nipissing, and no description of the region was given. As sportsmen’s holidays increased in popularity, however, the CPR decided to create some new publicity material aimed at sports fishermen. To give their guide more credibility, they had it endorsed, if not written, by the “commissioners” of The Canadian Sportsman. The result was Fishing Resorts Along the Canadian Pacific Railway, issued in 1887.[24] As the subtitle indicated, they were particularly interested in trout, bass, and makinonge, all high in the hierarchy of game fish. From that perspective, the Lake Nipissing area fared well and the guide devoted several pages to the area before going on to discuss the famous Lake Nipigon area. The CPR’s 1893 Shooting and Fishing Along the Line[25] was essentially an expanded version of Fishing Resorts, with the addition of information on hunting. The language describing the area and references to fishing remained almost without change.
Guides published in the nineteenth century were very dependent on text to make their point, using wood engravings based on drawings and sketches, often sparingly, to supplement the text. Railway maps showing the routes discussed were commonly added as well. The large colour fold-out map included in Cumberland’s The Northern Lakes of Canada is therefore a very distinctive feature of that guide. Unlike most maps, it has a horizon with blue sky and in the left corner a yellow sun beams, giving the entire landscape a golden glow. The map clearly shows the ease of access to the “Northern Lakes” from Toronto, with Chicago, Detroit, Buffalo, and New York also well within range and with many rail connections to Toronto. As distance from Toronto increases, built-up areas decrease and the number of lakes and rivers increases. Careful selection of geographical information meant the area between Toronto and Lake Nipissing was represented as one easily reached by rail, filled with lakes and connecting rivers, and void of urban interruption — a perfect sportsman’s paradise.
Created to show the Northern Railway’s route through the “New District for Sportsmen and Canoeists,” this map is an excellent example of how extreme the selection of information could be on railway maps. The route of the Northern Railway is promoted by giving it a heavier line than connecting lines and the CPR’s route, as one would expect. Perspective and size is used to emphasize the lakes in the Muskoka area. Lake Nipissing appears on the northern perimeter of the area being promoted. In the far distance, Lake Temiskaming, Lake Wanapitei, and Lake Nipigon can barely be seen. The lakes closer to Ottawa in the Kawartha Lakes region, not being part of the Northern’s sphere of influence, were excluded completely.
Courtesy of the North Bay Public Library.
Fishing, hunting, and canoeing were the three major activities likely to draw the sportsman into the Nipissing area. Railway guides used various approaches to impart information and persuade the reader of the advantages of the area. In Northern Lakes, a factual approach was used much of the time. The La Vase River “is navigable for canoes throughout with the exception of a few portages and with the several streams, tributaries to it, makes a good fishing ground. Bass, pickerel, maskinonge are the principal catch, affording good trolling with butterfly or minnow troll.” In Lake Nipissing “bass, pickerel, and whitefish; and huge sturgeon are to be caught.”[26] Colourful language and comparison was added for emphasis. “The speckled trout in the river are the largest and most plentiful anywhere this side of Nepigon.” In South River, the fish “are the true speckled trout, game as steel and gorgeous in their colouring, the red marks shining on their glistening sides like glittering rubies gleam.”[27] Fishing Resorts claimed that the excellent fishing lived up to the postcard images that many thought exaggerated: up to fifteen bass could be caught in an hour. The angler might well be tested by the “monster lunge,” and the author had seen one hooked by a lady, which came in at thirty-five pounds.[28]
Canoeing in the Nipissing area was often mentioned in these early guides, but only the Mattawa and the French were described in detail. A trip made by the Toronto Canoe Club in 1886 was mentioned, showing that city clubs could manage such a trip. References to the “voyageurs” helped to link the would-be canoeist to the historic figures who travelled the route in the past. The whole made for a “magnificent and adventurous tour.”[29] After describing access to the French River via steamer on Georgian Bay, Cumberland included a full description of the French River canoe route to Lake Nipissing. He recommended ascending the river as safer than descending it and suggested Logan’s map of 1847 be used for guidance. Scenery was not the strong point of this route, “yet it has its beauties to the eye, and a sense of novelty and excitement that, combined
