Oakville Outlook

Well, it's the last few days of the trip and I have to say in hindsight this trip has been great. We're currently in Oakville taking the opportunity of free lodgings at my Dad's house. Once again we didn't really do much today because we spent most of it driving but we did get a chance to stop at that ghost town. I have to say though, it was a little disappointing.

This isn't really Depot Harbour's fault (the name of the ghost town), when the town finally went belly up, the sold most of the buildings for scrap (because you can do that somehow) so all that remains are the foundation. On top of all that it's smack dab in the middle of some Ojibwa territory who are very hostile to the federal government, so I felt a little uneasy the whole time.

After driving across a turning bridge (it turns to let boats through) you're stuck on a dirt road the whole way there. The surrounding area is very nice and green, but not very developed. You come in from a fork in the road where some ruined buildings stand guard at the old entrance to the town.

All that is left of a three storey hotel. I guess ghosts don't pay the daily rate.

After that you come into the town proper, where all that remains of actual structures are two log cabins with no roof's. The whole area is overgrown with vegetation other than the roads that run through the place. There are trees growing right out of the houses themselves, which shows that nothing we build can last forever.

Abraham Lincoln's house got to be a national monument, this one isn't so lucky.

Inside the log cabin there was a frog. He was almost like foul bachelor frog but not a bullfrog. I missed him on the first pass but Geoff pointed him out to me when he looked through himself.

Wake up, people are looking at me: Go back to sleep.

The story of Depot Harbour is a sad one, as many ghost towns. Basically this guy owned a lumber mill near Ottawa when he was awarded the contract to build the National Parliament Buildings, so he needed more wood for the construction. So he bought up all the Algonquin forest permits, and built a railway to ship it up to Ottawa. Later he got into the grain market and extended his railway to Depot Harbour, the largest, most calm and most protected harbour in the Georgian Bay, a town he founded himself. The town grew as it took advantage of the surge in the international grain markets, eventually reaching a population of 650 in 1911. Unfortunately by the 1920's CNR had bought up all the railways in Ontario and shut down the Depot Harbour railyard. Later in the 30's a ice jam broke the railway trestle in Algonquin and cut off the railway link to the town.

In the 1940's they stored cordite there (An explosive powder used in artillery shells) until a post war Arson destroyed the harbour in a spectacular explosion, subsequently most of the people moved away. After about 20 years, all the buildings were scrapped so only the foundations remained.

All that remains of a mighty man's office

There wasn't much left of the harbour (due to the explosion) but there is still the moorings left on the far side of the harbour (near where we parked). It's shows that human construction can sometimes take more than a huge explosion and still stand. Unfortunately that couldn't be said for the rest of the town.

A little concrete can go a long way I guess.

Conclusion? Don't go to Depot Harbour without a tour guide, or at least make a half day trip out of it rather than somewhere you expect to spend only an hour. I think there were more roads that went elsewhere to the ruined town, but it wasn't well marked and we were in a hurry.

Unfortunately this is likely to be the last post for a while. After today we're just driving through Quebec and then back down to New Brunswick to drop Geoff off and grab some stuff to bring back to Oakville. This trip has been amazing and I would recommend anyone interested to repeat the trip, or at least go to some of the highlights. I plan to have a epilogue to this blog, but it won't be posted for the next little while.