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Rainbow Country | |
---|---|
Local Services Board | |
Country | Canada |
Province | Ontario |
District | Sudbury, Manitoulin |
Government | |
• Type | Local services board |
• MP | Carol Hughes (NDP) |
• MPP | Michael Mantha (NDP) |
Population (2016) | |
• Total | 307 |
Time zone | UTC-5 (EST) |
• Summer (DST) | UTC-4 (EDT) |
Area code | 705 |
Rainbow Country is a local services board in the Canadian province of Ontario. It encompasses and provides services to the communities of Whitefish Falls and Willisville in the Unorganized North Sudbury District and Birch Island and McGregor Bay in the Manitoulin District. [1]
It is the administrative headquarters of the Whitefish River Ojibwe First Nations band government. [2]
Whitefish Falls ( 46°06′N81°43′W / 46.100°N 81.717°W ) is located in the geographic township of Mongowin, in the Sudbury District. Whitefish Falls lies on Highway 6, and is approximately 20 kilometres south of Espanola and 25 kilometres north of Little Current.
Whitefish Falls is situated around the mouth of the Whitefish River at Lake Huron, just downstream from a picturesque waterfall. It is a popular tourist destination in the summer months, and is also the site of the annual La Cloche Art Show.
A reunion of the popular Canadian CBC TV show Adventures in Rainbow Country was held here in August 2006. Cast, locals and fans were present. The show was shot in the region in 1969.
The small church that was called St. Augustine's (Anglican) is now closed, was built by a company by the name of Mc Dermid. George Smyth of Ice Lake on the Manitoulin island, who worked for McDermid, made all the cement blocks by hand. He married Ernest Willis's (Willisville) youngest daughter Kathleen in the Church after it was completed in 1937. The carpenter on the job was Albert Shepherd of the Manitoulin Island. The minister in 1937 was the Rev. Worden Stump. [3]
In 2018, Ontario Northland announced a major service expansion west of Sudbury, which included Whitefish Falls as a flag stop. [4] Westbound buses travel onto Manitoulin Island, while eastbound buses travel to Sudbury via Espanola and Nairn. [5] This service ended in 2019. [6]
Willisville is on the Charlton-Cranberry-Frood Lake system in the heart of the La Cloche Mountains. It is named for Ernest Willis, the community's first postmaster who settled the community in 1910.
Ernest was originally from the Isle of Wight in England and came to Canada with his Willis family in 1875 aboard the Vicksburg. They settled in Howland Township on Manitoulin Island. Ernest married Ada Humphrey from the Manitouwaning area of the island. Some of their nine children were born on the Island and the youngest ones at Willisville. Ernest was a Forest Ranger and he and Ada used to portage canoes through the back lakes as far as Killarney checking the area for fires. Before Cameron’s opened a store in Whitefish Falls, Ernest would canoe and portage to Espanola to purchase supplies for his family. When the Algoma Eastern Railway was opened from Sudbury to Little Current, Ernest opened a store at Willisville and stocked supplies for sale to the residents and cottagers and for their own use. Later they rented the cabins to tourists who came to enjoy the fishing and scenery.
In the early days of St. Augustine’s Mission in Whitefish Falls, The community around the Mission consisted of mostly native people and two white families, namely the John Cameron and the Ernest Willis families. At the beginning of World War I, more white families were moving into the area and it was decided that there was a need for a school in the Mission area. Chief Keshigobiness, known as Big John and Mr. Ernest Willis who assisted him greatly, worked under great difficulty in procuring a school. They were guided by Bishop Thornloe and finally were able to open a school for those who wished to attend.
The first school was in the home of Big John and opened on October 13, 1916, by Rev S. H. Ferris of Garden River. Mr. Duncan Bell was the first teacher. The school continued until a fire burned down the log house, but a new building was soon found and some 20 children were gathered and taught until a proper school was built. Big John and Ernest walked from one lumber camp to another and begged for lumber or money and the new building was erected in 1917.
The Willis, Golden & other children from Willisville would walk along a path to the horseshoe curve and down the track to Whitefish Falls to attend school. In 1931, Kathleen Willis and Dewey Golden were the first two students to pass their Entrance exams at the school. Both went on to further studies. [7]
According to a community website, the entire community operates as a de facto condominium, with all community spaces jointly owned by its residents.
An 80-foot fire tower was built on Willisville Mountain in the 1920s by the Ontario Department of Lands and Forests.
The tower was run by John Burke in the early years. One day, while he was looking out to spot forest fires from the tower's cupola, he saw a herd of elephants at the bottom of the mountain trail. He called back to headquarters on his bushphone and relayed his sighting. Nobody believed him at first, until locals learned that a circus truck had broken down nearby and the elephants inside had escaped.
World heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis and singer Bing Crosby are known to have visited the tower and signed its guestbook. The tower can also be seen in the 1960s Canadian television series Adventures in Rainbow Country , which was filmed in the Willisville-Whitefish Falls area.
The tower was dismantled in 1986, but the mountain still remains a popular place for tourists to climb.
McGregor Bay is located on the LaCloche Peninsula within the Manitoulin District. [8]
The board's jurisdictional area is counted as three separate designated places in Statistics Canada census data. In the Canada 2016 Census, Willisville and Whitefish Falls had a combined population of 297, [9] while McGregor Bay Part A had a population of 10, [10] and McGregor Bay Part B had a population of 0. [11]
Northern Ontario is a primary geographic and quasi-administrative region of the Canadian province of Ontario, the other primary region being Southern Ontario. Most of the core geographic region is located on part of the Superior Geological Province of the Canadian Shield, a vast rocky plateau located mainly north of Lake Huron, the French River, Lake Nipissing, and the Mattawa River. The statistical region extends south of the Mattawa River to include all of the District of Nipissing. The southern section of this district lies on part of the Grenville Geological Province of the Shield which occupies the transitional area between Northern and Southern Ontario.
Espanola is a town in Northern Ontario, Canada, in the Sudbury District. It is situated on the Spanish River, approximately 70 kilometres (43 mi) west of downtown Sudbury, and just south of the junction of Highway 6 and Highway 17. The town is where the first experimental rules for the sport of ringette were created in 1963 by Mirl Arthur "Red" McCarthy using a group of local high school girls. Today, Espanola is considered "The Home of Ringette" while North Bay, Ontario, is considered the "Birthplace of Ringette" though the title of "birthplace of ringette" is often shared by both. While also being the home of Domtar paper distribution.
Northeastern Manitoulin and the Islands is a municipality with town status in Manitoulin District in Northeastern Ontario, Canada, approximately 30 kilometres (19 mi) south of Espanola. Its main town is Little Current, located on the northeast side of Manitoulin Island. However, its territory also includes most of the small islands surrounding Manitoulin, even those at the far western end of Manitoulin.
The Sudbury District is a district in Northeastern Ontario in the Canadian province of Ontario. It was created in 1894 from townships of eastern Algoma District and west Nipissing District.
Manitoulin District is a district in Northeastern Ontario within the Canadian province of Ontario. It was created in 1888 from part of the Algoma District. The district seat is in Gore Bay.
Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing is a federal electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that has been represented in the House of Commons of Canada since 2004. The area was represented by the riding of Algoma from 1867 to 1904 and from 1968 to 1996 and then by Algoma—Manitoulin from 1996 to 2004.
Adventures in Rainbow Country was a Canadian television series, which aired on CBC Television in the 1970–71 television season. Reruns were later shown on the American children's cable channel Nickelodeon during the early 1980s. A half hour family drama, the show starred Lois Maxwell as Nancy Williams, a widow raising her children Billy and Hannah in rural Northern Ontario.
Nairn and Hyman is a township in the Canadian province of Ontario. The township, located in the Sudbury District, borders on the southwestern city limits of Greater Sudbury west of the city's Walden district. The township had a population of 342 in the Canada 2016 Census.
Baldwin is a township in the Canadian province of Ontario. Located in Sudbury District north of Espanola, the township's two main communities and population centres are McKerrow and Lorne.
King's Highway 68, commonly referred to as Highway 68, was a provincially maintained highway on Manitoulin Island, linking the island to the mainland. It was connected to the rest of the network at McKerrow, where it met Highway 17. The road was built in the 1920s as a trunk road for the Department of Northern Development, but was assumed as a provincial highway in 1937, as the only King's Highway on the island. Highway 68 stretched from South Baymouth in the south, through the towns of Manitowaning and Little Current north through Espanola on the mainland, before terminating at Highway 17 in McKerrow.
Unorganized North Sudbury District is an unorganized area in the Canadian province of Ontario, comprising all portions of the Sudbury District which are not organized into incorporated municipalities. Despite its name, there is no longer an accompanying "South Part", as that subdivision has subsequently been incorporated into municipalities and Statistics Canada has not renamed the North Part.
The La Cloche Mountains, also called the La Cloche Range, are a range of mountains in Northern Ontario, Canada, along the northern shore of Lake Huron near Manitoulin Island. The mountains are located in the Canadian Shield, and are composed primarily of white quartzite.
West River is an unincorporated community in the geographic township of Mongowin, Sudbury District in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. It is named for the West River, which flows through the community just upstream of its mouth at the Whitefish River.
Ontario Northland Motor Coach Services is an intercity bus service operated by the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission, a Crown agency of the government of Ontario, Canada. Ontario Northland Motor Coach Services operates passenger and parcel transportation service in northern Ontario, with additional routes connecting northern Ontario to the Greater Toronto Area, Winnipeg, and Ottawa.
The Algoma Eastern Railway was a railway in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. Originally known as the Manitoulin and North Shore Railway (M&NS) with a charter dating back to 1888, the full mainline was opened to traffic in 1913, serving the area along the north shore of Lake Huron between Sudbury and Little Current on Manitoulin Island. It and its sister railway, the Algoma Central, were originally owned by the Lake Superior Corporation, a conglomerate centered on Sault Ste. Marie which was founded by the American industrialist Francis Clergue. Despite ambitious plans to expand across Lake Huron to the Bruce Peninsula using a railcar ferry, the company failed to develop further and was acquired by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1930. With freight traffic low during the Great Depression, Canadian Pacific soon abandoned much of the Algoma Eastern mainline in favor of its own Algoma Branch. Remaining sections of the Algoma Eastern line were turned into spurs, with the longest surviving section operated as a branch line known as the Little Current Subdivision.
Anishinabe Spiritual Centre is a Roman Catholic centre for Ignatian spirituality and training in ministry run by the Society of Jesus in Espanola, Ontario, specifically for the local First Nation people in the area. It is situated to the south of Espanola, on the shore of Anderson Lake, just off Ontario Highway 6. Since it was founded, it has been the only place in northern Ontario that has offered Roman Catholic ministerial training to Aboriginal peoples in Canada.
Whitefish River First Nation is an Ojibwe First Nation in Manitoulin District, Ontario. It is a member of the United Chiefs and Councils of Manitoulin. Its reserve is located at Whitefish River 4.
The Sudbury Ontario Northland Bus Terminal is a bus station and depot in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. It is operated by the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission (ONTC) and is a stop on a number of Ontario Northland intercity bus routes. The terminal consists of a single-storey structure situated at the intersection between the Kingsway, a major east-west arterial road in Sudbury, 2nd Avenue North, which leads south toward the residential neighbourhood of Minnow Lake, and Falconbridge Road, which leads northeast toward Garson. It lies to the east of Downtown Sudbury, close to the Southeast Bypass.
La Cloche Provincial Park is a provincial park at the boundary of Algoma and Sudbury Districts in Ontario, Canada. The park consists of an unspoiled section of the La Cloche Mountains that stretch along the North Channel of Georgian Bay, as well as several islands in the channel.
The Escarpment Biosphere Conservancy (EBC) is an environmental NGO, a registered environmental charity, and a qualified recipient to receive ecological gifts through the eco-gifts program of Environment and Climate Change Canada (Canada). It is the largest Ontario-focused land trust, with over 190 nature reserves as of January 2021.