The Timber Frontier – First of 4-part series

June 2, 2022

This article was done in partnership with the Whitemouth Municipal Museum and the Lac du Bonnet & District Historical Society. It appeared in the June 2, 2022 edition of the Lac du Bonnet Clipper and The Clipper Weekly (covering Whitemouth, Beausejour, Springfield).

In October 1877, Canadian Pacific Railway work crews reached Whitemouth. The line was cleared, bridges and rails would soon follow, opening up the timber frontier of southeastern Manitoba. Railway contractor, Joseph Whitehead, and his son-in-law, David Ross, worked on the line until bankruptcy shifted their focus from the railway to lumbering. In late June 1880, Whitehead and Ross transported their sawmill in pieces from St. Boniface to Whitemouth to capitalize on the timber trade.

Surrounded by miles of impassable muskeg and peat bogs, the Whitemouth Valley had massive stands of tamarack and jack pine. Further to the northeast, white spruce, averaging twenty to thirty inches at the base, and tamarack were abundant in the Whiteshell region. All ideal timber for building railways across Canada. Within the first year, Ross acquired 120 sq. miles of timber rights, and Whitehead secured another 61,440 acres, for a combined six townships, all in the Whitemouth Valley.

In 1880, settlers converged on this new railway town, and with them came transient railway workers and lumbermen to occupy Whitemouth’s three hotels and utilize their two general stores. By early 1882, newspapers across Canada advertised lots for sale, boasting that Whitemouth was destined to become a “large and populous” trading hub, since it was in the “heart of Timber Country,” at the core of Manitoba’s lumber trade, and the “railway centre of Eastern Manitoba.” The advertisements neglected to mention the hoards of mosquitoes and horseflies that plagued Whitemouth because of its proximity to swamp lands.

Entering the lumbering industry in Manitoba required little initial expenditure and nothing more than saws and axes to begin logging at bush camps. Eventually, small sawmills began to appear on homesteads, though David Ross’ Whitemouth mill remained the largest logging and sawmilling enterprise in the area. 

Operations at Ross’ steam-powered sawmill were extensive. Logs were harvested in winter and, using spring flood waters, were floated along the Whitemouth River. Ropes and chains, strung across to a small island at a bend in the river, stopped the logs at the mill site, located on the riverbank a half mile east of Whitemouth and just north of the rail line. Trainloads of railway ties were shipped to Winnipeg every evening.

Ross received Whitehead’s timber berths in 1883 and over the next decade, employed dozens of men at bush camps and at the sawmill, producing over three million board feet per year. Ross’ 1888 newspaper advertisements for Whitemouth Lumber Mills, promised orders would be filled “promptly and correctly, at the lowest possible prices.”

In the decade since its establishment, settlement and industry had largely overlooked Whitemouth. Civilization continued to push back the boundaries of the timber frontier, and people came to Whitemouth to discover the natural riches to the north and east. By the late 1890s, twenty miles north of Whitemouth, Lac du Bonnet was carved out of the bush. The founders relied on their Whitemouth neighbours, and believed the community would prosper alongside theirs.

The Lac du Bonnet Mining, Developing and Manufacturing Co. mapped a railway route from Whitemouth along a level and relatively muskeg-free path, which accessed thousands of acres for timber harvesting and agriculture. While they awaited approval for a rail line, company manager, Walter Wardrop, of Whitemouth, hauled in freight and materials for the new townsite, and also established a store. Lumber from David Ross’ mill was brought in from Whitemouth for construction of buildings and logs were cut from the surrounding bush for stables. Whitemouth’s blacksmith, Charlie Lean, and others joined Wardrop at Lac du Bonnet to create a community, and set up the brick plant.

Though in 1900, the CPR ultimately chose to build the Lac du Bonnet railway from Molson, and with it came railway contractor and businessman, J.D. McArthur, who would come to dominate Manitoba’s lumbering industry.

Part Two: For Capital & Honest Enterprise
Part Three: Pine Falls Pulp & Paper
Part Four: The Last Forty Years

References:

Jim Mochoruk, Formidable Heritage Manitoba’s North and the Cost of Development 1870 to 1930 (Winnipeg, MB: University of Manitoba Press, 2004), 21, 86, 65, 193, 413.

Bob Porth and Craig Mackenzie, eds., Trails to Rails to Highways (Winnipeg, Manitoba: Total Printing and Reproduction Service, 1979), 7-9, 11.

Aileen Oder, ed., Logs and Lines from the Winnipeg River: A History of the Lac du Bonnet Area (Steinbach, MB: Derksen Printers, 1980), 1.

“C.P.R Items.” Manitoba Free Press (Winnipeg, MB), October 26, 1877.

“Whitehead’s mill at St. Boniface…” Manitoba Free Press, June 25, 1880.

“North-west Timber Limits.” Manitoba Free Press, March 1, 1881.

“Important Sale by Public Auction.” Kingston Daily British Whig (Kingston, Ont.), February 23, 1882.

“Lumber.” Winnipeg Free Press, May 17, 1888.

Robert E. Clague. “The Ice Railway.” Winnipeg Free Press, November 5, 1953.

Fred Edge, The Iron Rose: The Extraordinary Life of Charlotte Ross, M.D. (Winnipeg, MB: University of Manitoba Press,1992), 154.

“Whitemouth River Valley Heritage Driving Tour.” RM of Whitemouth http://rmwhitemouth.com/p/whitemouth-heritage-driving-tour

Karen Nicholson, The Lumber Industry in Manitoba (Winnipeg, MB: Historic Resources Branch, 2000), 32-33.