The Golden Age of Pine Exports Begins, circa 1857

From the beginning of European migration to the Kawarthas, the region had abundant forest resources—if only there was a way to get them to market. Pioneer farmers often burned huge trees, just to get rid of them. Some businesses were exporting timber from the Upper Kawarthas to Great Britain by the 1830s, but for many years they were small, and much of the mill produce was to meet local needs. To export timber, it had to be floated down the Trent River, then assembled into rafts to travel to Quebec City, then loaded on transatlantic ships—hopefully by the time it arrived in Britain, it could still be resold at a profit.

In 1854, the Canadian-American Reciprocity Treaty allowed Canadian lumber to be exported to the United States without prohibitive tariffs—the same year that Kansas was organized as a state. With European immigrants settling the prairies, they needed to import lumber. Once the Port Hope, Lindsay and Beaverton Railway reached Lindsay in 1857, it became practical to quickly and economically move lumber long distances, including to American markets.

Some existing sawmills like Mossom Boyd of Bobcaygeon expanded to take advantage of new opportunities, while new mills were created in many communities like Fenelon Falls. In the second half of the nineteenth century, it was home to many lumbermen including R.C. Smith (later Howry), Greene & Ellis, Smith & Fell and Bradley Mowry (partnered at different times with George Brownlee and George Hilliard—later McArthur and Thompson). The Howry mill would become the largest in the region.

Over the second half of the nineteenth century, practically every merchantable pine that could be conveniently hauled to a waterway was floated down to a mill. By the 1890s, prime pine timber tributary to the Trent River was all but exhausted, and most of the large companies moved to different regions that had more marketable forests. But while they lasted, the timber firms included many of the area’s largest businesses. They were also the largest source of off-farm employment (and many farmers cut logs in winter to sell).

Each year, men would head north in autumn to get the camps and logging roads ready for the crew. (The first small-scale local operations relied on families, but the large, remote logging camps were a male domain.) Many of the crews were recruited in rural Quebec, where wages were lower, and where many men had developed the specialized skills—like squaring timber with a broad axe. The men lived in camps for the winter, felling trees with axes, then skidding and hauling them to the rivers, where they could be floated downstream come spring. The largest mills worked round the clock to saw up the trees, which were then piled to dry. They were then replied either on a rail car (if the company was fortunate enough to have a rail connection) or onto barges, which could then be replied once again onto a rail car—lumber would have to be restacked many times before it would finally be used!