Along the Mississippi River

Outdoors in the Land O'Lakes by Lorraine Julien

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The Canadian Mississippi watershed begins its journey above Mazinaw Lake in the northern part of the Land O’ Lakes. There is a little Mississippi as well but I will concentrate on the big river. In its length of just over 124 miles, the Mississippi crosses many townships, sometimes meandering slowly and other times rushing impatiently, but falling 1060 feet along the way until it joins the Ottawa River near the hamlet of Galetta. There are many great waterways and bodies of water in the Land O’ Lakes but I don’t believe any other river spans the entire area.

The Mississippi name was derived from an Ojibway Indian word “Mishe-sippi” meaning “large river”. The Indian name for its headwaters was “Massanoga” or “Mishinog” meaning “it is painted” possibly referring to the pictographs on Bon Echo Rock on Mazinaw Lake. I’ve also read that the Algonquin word “Mazinawzeebi” means “painted river image” so you can take your pick!

The natives would have been the first people to travel on the Mississippi. Next came the white men, primarily the Loyalists, in the early to mid 1800s. The Loyalists pushed northward from the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario. These settlers found pockets of fertile land interspersed among the bedrock of the Canadian Shield which led to dairy farms and cheese factories that continue on today. An influx of Scottish settlers arrived in Lanark County in the early 1820s bringing with them valuable skills such as carpentry, blacksmithing, shoemaking, spinning and weaving.

Lumbering, as a business, began as early as 1820, though on a small scale. As time went on, many lumber companies and sawmills sprang up along the river; during the spring runoff, this was the main means of transporting the logs to markets. The river also provided energy for sawmills to process the logs that were mostly destined for Europe. At that time logs sold locally for $6 to $8 per thousand feet.

After the overseas market for square logs was no longer viable, lumber came to be much in demand for construction purposes. In the early 1900s, sawn lumber and pulpwood were hauled over winter roads by bobsleighs and horses to the closest railway sidings. From there they were loaded onto boxcars and shipped to faraway destinations via the old K & P Railway.

Another large export was maple syrup; in fact, at one time there was more maple syrup shipped from Snow Road than anywhere else in Canada.

Many of the lakes, through which the river flows, have their water levels controlled by dams. In the old days, these dams were mostly constructed of logs but have been replaced by concrete structures maintained and controlled by the Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority.

One of my neighbours (a real history buff) decided to check out the area around the dam at the east end of Kashwakamak where there would have been a sluice for logs in the 1800s. It is amazing what he learned. He found a perimeter of stones that could have been the foundation for a lumber payroll shack. A metal detector was used to unearth some of the artifacts he found there. Pieces found in the immediate area were: a lumberman’s peavey (a sharp spike and hook used on the end of a pole), old broken china and glass, a musket ball, square handmade nails, part of an old horseshoe, a suspender buckle, a padlock with the date 1884 and a Queen Victoria silver shilling dated 1844. A coin of this value would have probably represented a week’s pay at that time.

The many quiet hamlets, villages and towns that grew alongside the river were once really bustling communities. It’s hard to imagine now but most communities had their own sawmills, cheese factories, blacksmith shops, hotels, general stores, schools, grain mills, woollen mills, tinsmiths, churches, and fire halls, just to name a few. We probably have more cheese factories per capita than most other regions of the country. Of course, cottages and lodges now line the shores of our waterways but I wonder how many people living or visiting here are aware of the colourful history of this area. If only the river could talk, I would love to hear its stories!

Aside from the livelihood and transportation the river has provided for hundreds of years, it still provides green power for generating stations and is now a major source of recreation in the area, providing fishing, boating and beautiful scenery.

A lot of the information I’ve included here is from the book “The Canadian Mississippi” by Hilda Geddes, copyright 1988. It’s an excellent book with almost 300 pages filled with really detailed and colourful anecdotes and pictures on the various settlements along the river. If you are interested in the history of our area, I would highly recommend this book. It’s possibly available in some of the local libraries.

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Please feel free to report any observations to Lorraine Julien at outdoor1@look.ca  or
Steve Blight at natureobservations@rogers.com