Three years from this year 1979, North Bay will be 100 years old; a mere child when compared with the ancient cities of the old lands, but quite a well-grown adult in any mans world. One hundred years ago there was nothing here but scrub bush rock and sand. No doubt a few Indians had camped among the sand dunes and wide sandy beaches that stretched from “third rocky” to St. Joseph’s College, and probably some of the early explorers had strolled along the smooth beach and maybe an odd person from Nipissing village had explored the area looking for farm land, but it was just as nature made it, virgin land.
Not until the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway began was the North shore of Lake Nipissing explored. During 1881 the locators of the railway came along and chose the route. At first they were going to build it along the South side of Lake Nipissing and hence over to Georgian Bay and from there have a boat line to Thunder Bay, but Sanford Fleming vetoed that and said: “ The CPR must be a continuous railroad, and go north around Lake Superior.”
So, instead of Callander becoming the construction camp, North Bay was the logical location. During the winter of 1881 there were likely a few log camps where Oak Street is now to house the men-tie makers who cut trees and hewed them into ties, right-of-way cutters who chopped a swath through the bush and powder men who blasted out the rock cuts. They were a motley gang, mostly from the Ottawa valley, Cobden, Pembroke, Renfrew and Beachburg, but a few from the little village of Nipissing. During the summer of 1882 the pick and shovel men, grubbers, and graders, and the teamsters and scrapers inched their way Westward, filling the low spots, scraping the high spots, building culverts and bridges, preparing for the track layers.
The bridge builders were a special gang who often worked well ahead of the right-of-way workers. During the winter of 1881, for instance, the bridge over Duchesnay Creek was built by men living in the construction camp where North Bay is now. The rails crept along and finally in the fall of 1882 they reached Lake Nipissing, and as Dr. J. B. MacDougall wrote: “So on a memorable day in November 1882 the CPR poked its nose through the spruce forest to the East of the present site and North Bay was born. The first train to carry passengers was a coach on the end of the tallest train and Mr. and Mrs. William Ferguson their son John, Duncan McIntyre, who was the chief engineer and an uncle of John Ferguson. Mr. and Mrs. Adam Torrance and probably others not remembered.
As they climbed off the train one can imagine what they saw. A long low building, which served as a station and boarding house. A couple of rough log cabins, some tents pitched among the stumps and brush heaps, piles of ties and rails, piles of wood for the engine, stacks of hay for the horses and cattle, stuff strewn along the tracks, everything lying as it was thrown off the cars. The small clearing around the buildings would be full of stumps and, put for a fringe along the track, was virgin forest. Rather a bleak, uninviting scene.
That first winter was a busy one. They started immediately to build log cabins and tar paper shacks. One advantage, however, was that the lumber and building material was now brought in from civilization by the railroad, so they had lumber for their floors and roofs, something many early settlers didn’t have. The log cabins were built with logs they cut out of the pine forest, which covered all of the land around where Scollard Hall is now. Land had to be cleared and the trees and bush burned. Alec Doule and his yoke of Oxen were busy from dawn to dark dragging and piling the trees into heaps to be burned. Wood for the engines and stoves had to be cut and split. Water was carried in buckets from the lake by the woman.
For the engines, however, a water tank was built that fall near where the parking lot is now, and water was pumped into it with a steam pump on the lakeshore. Cords of four-foot wood for the engines were piled where the old freight shed used to be. One of the first real houses was built where Beaver Lumber Company is now by John Ferguson’s brother-in-law, and it served as the one and only boarding house for a few years. It was called The Bon Ton.
The next year the CPR built a row of frame houses along Oak Street, between Ferguson and Wyld. Probably a few old timers will remember. The Red Row, as they were called. All the CPR buildings were painted red, CPR red. Most of the newcomers, however, built their own log cabins wherever the Baywood Motel is now, and others down along Oak, Wyld and Sherbrooke Streets.
The first school was a log cabin near where the Baywood is now. It wasn’t built as a school, but was given to the settlement by John Ferguson and used as a school. I believe Ferguson’s first home was about where the National Grocers building used to be. He later built the nice semi-colonial house that many will remember on McIntyre, where the Ascot Motel is now. When built, It was the most pretentious residence in the town. Although it was on McIntyre, It actually faced Main St. with a beautiful lawn from the house down to Main St. Pity it wasn’t kept! as an historical site, but like most such things, money was the stopper. I must take some responsibility because I was the city council it was for sale. We didn’t have money in our budget and the sale was made before we could finance the purchase.
