Lanark County | |
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County of Lanark | |
Nickname: The Maple Syrup Capital of Ontario | |
Coordinates: 45°00′N76°15′W / 45.000°N 76.250°W | |
Country | Canada |
Province | Ontario |
Region | Eastern Ontario |
County seat | Perth |
Municipalities | List
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Area | |
• Land | 2,977.05 km2 (1,149.45 sq mi) |
• Census division | 2,986.71 km2 (1,153.18 sq mi) |
Land area excludes Smiths Falls | |
Population (2021) [1] | |
• Total | 66,506 |
• Density | 22/km2 (60/sq mi) |
• Census division | 75,760 |
• Census division density | 25.4/km2 (66/sq mi) |
Total excludes Smiths Falls | |
Time zone | UTC-5 (EST) |
• Summer (DST) | UTC-4 (EDT) |
Website | www |
Lanark County is a county and census division located in the Canadian province of Ontario. Its county seat is Perth, which was first settled in 1816 [2] and was known as a social and political capital before being over shadowed by what we now know as Ottawa. [3]
Most European settlements of the county began in 1816, when Drummond, Beckwith and Bathurst townships were named and initially surveyed. [4] The first farm north of the Rideau was cleared and settled somewhat earlier, in 1790. [5] The county took its name from the town of Lanark in Scotland. Nearly all the townships were named after British public and military figures from the era of early settlement. [5]
In 1824, Lanark County was severed from Carleton County in Bathurst District, and it consisted of the following townships and lands:
together with all the unsurveyed lands within the District of Bathurst, and such Islands in the Ottawa River as are wholly or in greater part opposite to the said townships and unsurveyed land [6] |
When Carleton was withdrawn from the District in 1838, Renfrew County was severed from part of Lanark, [7] but the two remained united for electoral purposes. [8] By 1845, all lands in the District had been surveyed into the following townships:
Lanark | Renfrew |
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In 1851, the township of Pakenham was transferred from Renfrew to Lanark. [9]
Effective January 1, 1850, Bathurst District was abolished, and the "United Counties of Lanark and Renfrew" replaced it for municipal and judicial purposes. [10] The counties remained united for electoral purposes in the Parliament of the Province of Canada, referred to as the County of Lanark, [11] until Renfrew gained its own seat in 1853. [12]
The separation of Renfrew from Lanark began in 1861, with the creation of a Provisional Municipal Council [13] that held its first meeting in June 1861. [14] The United Counties were dissolved in August 1866. [14]
Municipality | Constituted from | Map |
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Smiths Falls is a separated town and is for municipal purposes not part of the county. It is mostly located in Lanark, while its southern part was annexed from the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville.
The county is located in the sub-region of Southern Ontario named Eastern Ontario. Geologically, the northern part of the county is in the Canadian Shield and the southern part is in the Great Lakes Basin. The county has two large rivers, the Mississippi and Rideau, each of which empty into the Ottawa River. The landscape is varied including Canadian Shield (with gneiss, granite and marble) as well as limestone plains, with a variety of tills, sands and clays left from the melting of glaciers in the last ice age. [15]
At the time of settlement, most of the county was covered in temperate deciduous forest; the dominant forest trees included maple, hemlock, oak and beech. [15] Some of the higher ridges in the west of the county were likely once natural fire barrens, with a distinctive fauna and flora. [16] The clearance of forests began with early settlement, at which time one of the important exports from the area was potash, made from the ashes of the trees burned in clearing. [17]
The natural diversity of the landscape supports over 1,200 species of plants in the county flora. [18] Seventeen areas have been documented as outstanding examples of plant diversity; these include Blueberry Mountain, Burnt Lands Alvar, Clay Bank Alvar, Christie Lake, Murphy's Point Provincial Park and Almonte Town Park. [19] The county also has 47 provincially significant wetlands. Some of the largest are Blueberry Marsh (north of Perth), the Innisville Wetlands (upstream of Mississippi Lake) and the Goodwood Marsh south of Carleton Place. [20] In addition to David White's list of 17 areas of plant diversity, Paul Keddy lists 17 special places in the county. [21] Both lists have the Burnt Lands Alvar, the Christie Lake Barrens and Murphy's Point Provincial Park. Keddy's list adds areas such as Playfairville Rapids, [22] Lavant/Darling Spillway and the Carleton Place Hackberry stand. Also of interest is an old shoreline which crosses the county diagonally, approximately from Almonte in the northeast to Perth in the southwest. [23] This shoreline was formed about 12,000 years ago near the end of the last ice age when much of the Ottawa Valley was inundated by the Champlain Sea. Many areas below this old shoreline are flat clay plains, with occasional outcrops of gneiss or limestone ridges.
Some of the distinctive southern animals in the county include five-lined skinks [24] (Ontario's only species of lizard), black ratsnakes and southern flying squirrels. [25] Unusual southern plants include arrow arum, a nationally rare wetland plant found near Mississippi Lake. [26] The south-facing cliffs over Big Rideau Lake, including Foley Mountain, have a slightly warmer climate, and therefore support an unusual southern flora [19] including shagbark hickory, tall cinquefoil (Potentilla arguta) and a rare fern, blunt-lobed woodsia. [27] Cliff Bennett provides a list of 26 routes for canoe and kayak exploration of the county. [28]
From the census division in the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Lanark County had a population of 75,760 living in 31,909 of its 35,441 total private dwellings, a change of 10.3% from its 2016 population of 68,698. With a land area of 2,986.71 km2 (1,153.18 sq mi), it had a population density of 25.4/km2 (65.7/sq mi) in 2021. [1]
2021 | 2016 | 2011 | |
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Population | 75,760 (+10.3% from 2016) | 68,698 (+4.6% from 2011) | 65,667 (+3.0% from 2006) |
Land area | 2,986.71 km2 (1,153.18 sq mi) | 3,035.64 km2 (1,172.07 sq mi) | 3,033.82 km2 (1,171.36 sq mi) |
Population density | 25.4/km2 (66/sq mi) | 22.6/km2 (59/sq mi) | 21.6/km2 (56/sq mi) |
Median age | 48.8 (M: 47.2, F: 50.4) | 48.2 (M: 47.0, F: 49.2) | |
Private dwellings | 35,441 (total) 31,909 (occupied) | 32,695 (total) 28,580 (occupied) | 31,361 (total) |
Median household income | $88,000 | $71,660 |
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Population counts are not adjusted for boundary changes. Source: Statistics Canada [1] [34] [35] [36] |
The county is one of the top centres of maple syrup production in Ontario and describes itself as "The Maple Syrup Capital of Ontario". [37]
There are two provincial parks in Lanark County: [38] Murphy's Point Provincial Park on Big Rideau Lake and Silver Lake Provincial Park along Highway 7 near the west end of the county. The Rideau Trail [39] and Trans-Canada Trail [40] both go through Lanark County. There are also several conservation areas run by the Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority, [41] the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority, [42] and the Mississippi Madawaska Land Trust. [43] The K&P rail trail goes through the northwest corner of the county.
Carleton Place is a town in Eastern Ontario, Canada, in Lanark County, about 46 kilometres (29 mi) west of downtown Ottawa. It is located at the crossroads of Highway 15 and Highway 7, halfway between the towns of Perth, Almonte, Smiths Falls, and the nation's capital, Ottawa. Canada's Mississippi River, a tributary of the Ottawa River flows through the town. Mississippi Lake is just upstream by boat, as well as by car.
The Thousand Islands – Frontenac Arch region or the Frontenac Axis is an exposed strip of Precambrian rock in Canada and the United States that links the Canadian Shield from Algonquin Park with the Adirondack Mountain region in New York, an extension of the Laurentian mountains of Québec. The Algonquin to Adirondacks region, which includes the Frontenac Axis or Arch, is a critical linkage for biodiversity and resilience, and one with important conservation potential. The axis separates the St. Lawrence Lowlands and the Great Lakes Lowlands. It has many distinctive plant and animal species. It is one of four ecoregions of the Mixedwood Plains.
Arnprior is a town in Renfrew County, Ontario, Canada.
Beckwith is a township in eastern Ontario, Canada. It is located in Lanark County on the Mississippi River. It is located within Canada's National Capital Region.
Renfrew County is a county in the Canadian province of Ontario. It straddles the west bank of the Ottawa River. There are 17 municipalities in the county.
The Mississippi River is a tributary of the Ottawa River in Eastern Ontario, Canada which has no relation with the Mississippi River in the United States. It is 200 kilometres (120 mi) in length from its source at Mackavoy Lake, has a drainage area of 4,450 square kilometres (1,720 sq mi), and has a mean discharge of 40 cubic metres per second (1,400 cu ft/s). There are more than 250 lakes in the watershed.
Drummond/North Elmsley is a township in eastern Ontario, Canada in Lanark County. It is situated on the north shore of the Rideau River between the town of Perth and the town of Smiths Falls. It is a predominantly rural municipality. The township offices are located in the hamlet of Port Elmsley.
Tay Valley is a township in eastern Ontario, Canada, on the Tay River in the southwest corner of Lanark County, adjacent to the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville and Frontenac County. The township administrative offices are located in Glen Tay.
Carleton County is the name of a former county in Ontario, Canada. In 1969, it was superseded by the Regional Municipality of Ottawa–Carleton. In 2001, the Regional Municipality and its eleven local municipalities were replaced by the current city of Ottawa.
Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke is a federal electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that has been represented in the House of Commons since 1979.
Carleton—Mississippi Mills was a federal electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that was represented in the House of Commons of Canada from 1988 to 2015.
Carleton is a federal electoral district in Ontario, Canada, represented in the House of Commons of Canada from 1867 to 1968 and since 2015. It was represented in the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada from 1821 to 1840 and in the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada from 1841 until 1866. It has been represented by Pierre Poilievre, the current Leader of the Opposition, since its creation in 2015.
The Tay River is a river in Lanark County in Eastern Ontario, Canada. It is in the Saint Lawrence River drainage basin and is a left tributary of the Rideau River.
The Bathurst District was a historic district in Upper Canada. It was created in 1822 from the Johnstown District. Containing Carleton County, it existed until 1849. The district town was Perth.
King's Highway 15, commonly referred to as Highway 15, is a provincially maintained highway in the Canadian province of Ontario. It travels north from an interchange with Highway 401 in Kingston to Highway 7 in Carleton Place, a distance of 114.7 kilometres (71.3 mi). In addition to Kingston and Carleton Place, the highway provides access to the Eastern Ontario communities of Joyceville, Seeley's Bay, Morton, Elgin, Crosby, Portland, Lombardy and Franktown. Prior to 1998, Highway 15 continued north from Carleton Place, passed Almonte and through Pakenham, to Highway 17 in Arnprior.
Mississippi Lake is a lake in Lanark County in Ontario, Canada, about 60 km southwest of Ottawa. It is a shallow and narrow lake, about 10 m deep at its deepest, 16 km in length, and less than one km wide in most places. Around the shoreline are over 1,000 homes, ranging from small cabins, to larger vacation homes, to full-time residences, many of them accessed by private roads. There are also several campground resorts, with RVs, waterfront condos, or rentals.
White Lake is a medium-sized lake of Ontario, Canada. It is located in Renfrew County, 60 kilometres (37 mi) west of Ottawa, Ontario near Calabogie to the west and Arnprior to the north. It may be accessed via Highway 417 from Ottawa or Renfrew Country Road 511 from Perth. The town of White Lake lies on the northern shore of the lake.
The Burnt Lands is an alvar between Almonte and Ottawa near Upper Huntley, Ontario, Canada. It probably obtained its name from one of the forest fires that swept the area during early European settlement.
The Keddy Nature Sanctuary consists of approximately one square mile of forest and wetland on the very edge of the Canadian shield, just an hour west of Ottawa on the east side of Lanark County, in Ontario, Canada. It is mostly second growth temperate deciduous forest, interspersed with wetlands and beaver ponds, as well as sedge-dominated rock-ridges. A central ridge has more than twenty hectares of hemlock forest. There are also old fields that remain from pastures created in the previous century. Parts of this property, as well as adjoining lands, are designated as the Scotch Corners Provincially Significant Wetland. The property is one of several protected by the Mississippi Madawaska Land Trust.