Sand Point is a community in the township of McNab/Braeside, Ontario, Canada, along the Ottawa River, roughly six miles to the west of Arnprior on the River Road. During the 1860s and early 1870s it was the terminus of the Canada Central Railway (subsequently acquired by the Canadian Pacific Railway). At one point Sand Point boasted a hotel, a dance hall, a general store, and a post office.
For decades Sand Point was the Ontario terminus of the Sand Point, Ontario-Norway Bay, Quebec ferry which provided access to the CPR and Arnprior. From 1923 to 1963 the eight car ferry, Norvic , landed at the Norway Bay Wharf. The Norvic was originally owned by Colonel Courtney, and her father-in-law James Young, both of Ottawa, with Dudley Gamble as manager. The ferry was sold in 1963 to Mr. Charles Bond of the Bond Marina at Manotick, Ontario. Mr. Gamble who owned the ferry paid the wharfage fees charged each year by the federal government. Gamble died in 1966. The ferry has been revived as a tour boat in the 1000 Islands system. The boat was the successor to the old Norway Belle destroyed by ice when it was pushed off the Norway Bay wharf in 1919. The "Norvic" derived its name from its home harbor, Norway Bay, and its builders, Vicker's Marine of Montreal. Seventy two feet long with a beam of twenty two feet, solid steel hull with diesel engine, built in 1922.Some of the captains who sailed the Norvic were Captains Charier and Fleming, Dudley Gamble,the Bailey brothers, Jack, George and Lincoln and Jim McKnight.
For those who are familiar with the Norvic, the vessel had a very distinctive and unique bow and stern shape. In approximately the year 2003, the easily recognizable hull of the boat was sited as the base of a refurbished yacht tied up at a marina on the Ottawa River near Rideau Falls. The boat was refurbished by Ottawa developer Bill Teron and relaunched in 1989.
In 1924 several Arnprior residents began construction of a golf course and club on the hill above Sand Point where it remains a mainstay of the community. In 2018 the golf club was sold, and renamed as "Sand Point Golf Club". [1]
In 2018 the former railbed was converted into a recreational trail for snowmobiles and four-wheelers. The trail connects Arnprior with Renfrew, Ontario via Braeside, Sand Point and Castleford. Users are advised to limit their speeds to 20 km/h when going through Sand Point by a new sign installed in 2020
Rhoddy's Bay just west of Sand Point along the River Road is a popular summer cottage destination with great beaches and sandy river bottoms.
In 2017 & 2019 the community experienced floods that were the worst of the Ottawa area spring flooding of those years.
You can find a Little Free Library on Sullivan's Point in the community. This small structure is open to anyone to donate, and borrow books within Rhoddy's Bay
On February 9, 1904, Canadian Pacific train 7 collided head on with Canadian Pacific train 8 about two miles west of Sand Point. [2] [3] [4] Thirteen people were killed:
Smiths Falls is a town in Eastern Ontario, Canada, 72 kilometres (45 mi) southwest of Ottawa. As of the 2021 census it has a population of 9,254. It is in the Census division for Lanark County, but is separated from the county. The Rideau Canal waterway passes through the town, with four separate locks in three locations and a combined lift of over 15 metres (49.2 ft).
Arnprior is a town in Renfrew County, in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario, Canada. It is located 65 km (40 mi) west of Downtown Ottawa, at the confluence of the Madawaska River and the Ottawa River in the Ottawa Valley. Arnprior has experienced significant growth in populations with the widening of the 417 Provincial Highway to four lanes. The town experienced an increase in population by 8.4% from 2011 to 2016, at which time its population was 8,795. The town is a namesake of Arnprior, Scotland, and is known for lumber, hydro power generation, aerospace, farming and its proximity to the National Capital Region.
The Ottawa Valley is the valley of the Ottawa River, along the boundary between Eastern Ontario and the Outaouais, Quebec, Canada. The valley is the transition between the Saint Lawrence Lowlands and the Canadian Shield. Because of the surrounding shield, the valley is narrow at its western end and then becomes increasingly wide as it progresses eastward. The underlying geophysical structure is the Ottawa-Bonnechere Graben. Approximately 1.3 million people reside in the valley, around 80% of whom reside in Ottawa. The total area of the Ottawa Valley is 2.4 million ha. The National Capital Region area has just over 1.4 million inhabitants in both provinces.
McNab/Braeside is a township in eastern Ontario, Canada, on the south shore of Chats Lake, straddling the lower Madawaska River in Renfrew County.
Whitewater Region is a township on the Ottawa River in Renfrew County, located within the scenic Ottawa Valley in eastern Ontario, Canada. Whitewater Region is made up of the former municipalities of Beachburg, Cobden, Ross and Westmeath, which were amalgamated into the current township on January 1, 2001.
King's Highway 17, more commonly known as Highway 17, is a provincially maintained highway and the primary route of the Trans-Canada Highway through the Canadian province of Ontario. It begins at the Manitoba boundary, 50 km (31 mi) west of Kenora, and the main section ends where Highway 417 begins just west of Arnprior. A small disconnected signed section of the highway still remains within the Ottawa Region between County Road 29 and Grants Side Road. This makes it Ontario's longest highway.
Depot Harbour is a ghost town on Wasauksing First Nation, in the Parry Sound District, Ontario, Canada. It was once the western terminus of the Canada Atlantic Railway and a busy port on Georgian Bay.
King's Highway 417, commonly referred to as Highway 417 and as the Queensway through Ottawa, is a 400-series highway in the Canadian province of Ontario. It connects Ottawa with Montreal via A-40, and is the backbone of the highway system in the National Capital Region. Within Ottawa, it forms part of the Queensway west from Highway 7 to Ottawa Road 174. Highway 417 extends from the Quebec border, near Hawkesbury, to Arnprior, where it continues westward as Highway 17. Aside from the urban section through Ottawa, Highway 417 passes through farmland that dominates much of the fertile Ottawa Valley.
Toronto Harbour or Toronto Bay is a bay on the north shore of Lake Ontario, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is a natural harbour, protected from Lake Ontario waves by the Toronto Islands. Today, the harbour is used primarily for recreational boating, including personal vessels and pleasure boats providing scenic or party cruises. Ferries travel from docks on the mainland to the Islands, and cargo ships deliver aggregates and raw sugar to industries located in the harbour. Historically, the harbour has been used for military vessels, passenger traffic and cargo traffic. Waterfront uses include residential, recreational, cultural, commercial and industrial sites.
The Brockville Railway Tunnel, also called the Brockville Tunnel, is a former railway tunnel located beneath the downtown of Brockville, Ontario, Canada. It is the first railway tunnel built in Canada; construction began in September 1854 and the first train passed through the tunnel on December 31, 1860. Since 2017 it has been opened to the public as a free seasonal tourist attraction.
Galetta is a dispersed rural community in West Carleton-March Ward in rural western Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It is located on the Mississippi River near its mouth in the Ottawa River. Once part of Fitzroy Township and later West Carleton, it is now part of the city of Ottawa.
The Parry Sound Colonization Railway Company (PSCR) was a Canadian railway that operated in Ontario. It originally intended to connect the town of Parry Sound to the Northern and Pacific Junction Railway but ran out of funds shortly after starting construction. The line was purchased by John Rudolphus Booth in 1892 to form the western end of his Ottawa, Arnprior and Parry Sound Railway. Failing to come to an agreement on the location of an associated port, the line ultimately bypassed the town completely, running to Depot Harbour, a company town.
The Ottawa, Arnprior and Parry Sound Railway, or OA&PS, is a historic railway that operated in central and eastern Ontario, Canada from 1897 until 1959. It was, for a time, the busiest railway route in Canada, carrying both timber and wood products from today's Algonquin Provincial Park areas, as well as up to 40% of the grain traffic from the Canadian west from Depot Harbour at Parry Sound through to the St. Lawrence River valley.
The Canada Atlantic Railway (CAR) was a North American railway located in Ontario, southwestern Quebec and northern Vermont. It connected Georgian Bay on Lake Huron with the northern end of Lake Champlain via Ottawa. It was formed in 1879 through a merger of two separate railway companies that John Rudolphus Booth had purchased, and reached its full extent in 1899 through a third company that he had created. The CAR was owned by Booth for several years after its completion until he agreed to sell it to the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) in 1904.
Canadian National Hotels was a hotel chain under control by Canadian National Railways. In addition to their own hotels, it acquired some from predecessor railway companies like the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, Grand Trunk Railway and Ottawa, Arnprior and Parry Sound Railway. Some of their assets were later acquired by rival Canadian Pacific Hotels after 1988.
The Northern and Pacific Junction Railway (N&PJ) is a historic railway located in northern Ontario, Canada. It connected the Northern Railway of Canada's endpoint in Gravenhurst to the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) at Nipissing Junction, near North Bay. The N&PJ provided an almost straight line north-south route from Toronto to the transcontinental line, competing with a similar line of the Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) a short distance to the east.
Bristol is a municipality in the Ottawa Valley, on the Quebec side in the Outaouais region, part of the Pontiac Regional County Municipality, Quebec, Canada. It is located on the north shore of Lac des Chats across from Arnprior, Ontario.
This is a timeline of the history of Ottawa.
This is the outline of the geography of the city of Ottawa, the capital of Canada. Ottawa's current borders were formed in 2001, when the former city of Ottawa amalgamated with the ten other municipalities within the former Regional Municipality of Ottawa–Carleton. Ottawa is now a single-tiered census division, home to 1,017,449 people.